A NURSE gave evidence before a panel following allegations that she allowed staff at an Ebbw Vale care home to take home surplus medicine for personal use and failed to tell her current employer that this was being investigated.

A conduct and competence committee hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in Cardiff, was told yesterday by nurse Tina Cullen, who formally worked at the Red Rose care home, that an alleged incident where she and nurse Joanna Lloyd allowed staff to take medicine home did not take place.

They heard how Mrs Cullen left school at the age of 16 with little qualifications and undertook a range of jobs from working in an estate agent to factory work.

She became the main carer for her sister, went to university and undertook teacher training before taking a position at a school.

Mrs Cullen explained that after being made redundant from this position, she gained a job at a care home.

In September 2012, she began work at the Red Rose care home where she concentrated on completing paperwork.

She explained that staff attitudes changed towards her when she reported a staff member to Ms Lloyd for catheterizing a resident without the proper permission in March 2013.

She said: “After that the staff hated me.... I stayed another three to four weeks and handed my notice in... I left in the April.”

She described how at the care home the nurse in charge of the clinic would order medicine without checking stock levels so there was a surplus.

When a stock take was recorded, any surplus medicine would be popped out of its packet and put in a green bin, she said.

Mrs Cullen said that on March 19, 2013, she sat for hours with Ms Lloyd doing this task.

When asked if she offered staff medication, she replied “no” adding: “I would not do that because you have to give medication to whom it is prescribed and it’s against all regulations.”

She also said she would not have allowed Ms Lloyd to offer medicine to staff either.

Last November, Mrs Cullen said she recalled receiving a letter outlining an investigation, and in February 2014, she claims she told her current employer about it but that she didn’t know about any incident.

When it was suggested that she didn’t tell her employer sooner because she hoped to conceal it from them, she said: “I was not trying to be dishonest”.

Mrs Cullen denies offering overstocked medicine to members of staff and/or allowed staff to take medication for their own personal use in March 2013.

She also denies taking any overstocked medication home for her own use.

She admits that she failed to disclose to her current employer that her fitness to practise had been called into question between November and February and she was subject to a NMC fitness to practise investigation.

Mrs Cullen is fighting two linked dishonesty allegations, and a further allegation of her fitness to practise thus being impaired by reason of misconduct.

Proceeding.