THE fate of a nurse’s career is to be determined by a panel today while a charge against her colleague is dropped.

A conduct and competence committee hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in Cardiff looked over information received from witnesses in helping them to determine the case against nurses Tina Cullen and Joanna Lloyd.

The pair was alleged to have allowed staff at the Red Rose care home in Ebbw Vale, where they worked, to take home surplus medicine for personal use Yesterday the panel decided that there was insufficient evidence to enable the charge against Mrs Lloyd to be proved on the balance of probabilities.

The same charge against Ms Cullen was also not proved, and a further three charges, which alleged that she also took overstocked medication, and that she was dishonest to her current employer were also dropped.

The panel noted that witness evidence of the alleged incident was inconsistent and contradictory.

They also noted that on her response to the charge form in December 2013, Ms Cullen provided contact details for her current employer so that they could be contacted in regards to the investigation, so it does not follow that she was deliberately trying to withhold information from them.

But a charge of not disclosing to her employer that her fitness to practice had been called into question due to the investigation between November 2013 and February 2014 was admitted by Ms Cullen.

The panel are due to meet today to decide if that one charge amounts to misconduct and fitness to practice impaired.

On Wednesday, Ms Cullen told the panel how she began work at the Red Rose care home. But 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.”

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.

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

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

Proceeding.