Kate Sullivan was found to have had sex with a colleague on three separate occasions and failed to disclose the relationship to her employer
A disciplinary panel has struck off a mental health nurse after she was found having had a sexual relationship with a colleague on three separate occasions while working on the ward.
Kate Sullivan, who worked on the Rowan ward at Glanrhyd Hospital in Bridgend, South Wales, a secure rehabilitation unit solely for men which provides care for a high number of patients from prison, was found to have consistently acted unprofessionally.
Sullivan had been temporarily promoted to a band seven ward manager, as per her fitness to practise hearing at the time when she engaged in the intimate relationship with her colleague on a lower band.
The panel heard between October 2020 to the summer of 2021, the nurse had a “causal relationship” with a colleague on band two, which she failed to disclose to her employer, Swansea Bay University Health Board. The panel found this to be in breach of workplace policy.
As well as disappearing for romp breaks on shift, the panel heard she even called a fellow colleague a “lazy c***””, reports The Daily Star.
She later admitted: “I engaged in a casual relationship with a fellow colleague and he was working as a band two on the ward at that time.”
The panel concluded that Sullivan had sex with this individual – referred to only as Colleague A – at their workplace on March 4, 2021, and then again on January 8 and 17 of the following year, according to Wales Online.
On the first occasion, Sullivan was working a night shift when she led a female colleague into the hospital’s “hub shop”. The panel heard that Sullivan made it clear to her co-worker that she and Colleague A wanted to be left alone.
“[The female co-worker] vacated to the adjacent room leaving Colleague A and Miss Sullivan alone… She then heard sounds consistent with sexual intercourse coming from the adjacent room,” stated panel chair Alisa Newman.
In her witness statement, the “very uncomfortable” co-worker said: “I could hear the desk was banging against the wall and I could hear them both making noises. There was no-one else around, and all of the patients were asleep, so I was certain the noise I heard came from them next door. The sex did not last very long. The noises went on for about two to five minutes.”
During the second incident, Sullivan messaged the same colleague claiming she had just engaged in sexual activity with Colleague A in the “recharge room”. On the third occasion, she sent a similar text: “Haha [Colleague A] just had sex with me.” The then-couple were both working a night shift at the time.
Sullivan rejected claims of the sexual activity and insisted she would “fabricate stories” to maintain her co-worker’s interest in conversing with her. However, the panel determined it was “inherently unlikely that Miss Sullivan would have invented a story that she and Colleague A had sex in the workplace”.
Additional worries regarding Sullivan’s behaviour included declining to examine a patient who had a rash on their groin and violating confidentiality by revealing colleagues’ sickness absence reasons to other staff members, the panel heard. Sullivan adjusted her schedule to work more frequently with Colleague A. She also turned up for a shift she hadn’t been rostered for, which the panel deduced was because Colleague A was on duty that day.
There was an occasion when she decided to abruptly leave the ward with Colleague A, resulting in the unit being understaffed and unsafe. She publicly criticised a colleague’s paperwork and referred to another colleague as “a lazy c***”, according to the panel’s findings.
Sullivan was found to have “knowingly breached professional boundaries” by allowing a patient into her office with the door closed and blinds down for approximately 20 minutes. This was particularly inappropriate given the patient’s “sexualised behaviour and difficulties in understanding boundaries”, stated Ms Newman.
The panel also concluded she had violated workplace policy by hugging the same patient and laughing when he referred to her as “babe”.
On a different occasion, this patient had grabbed another female staff member and grinded against her. Sullivan was reprimanded by the panel for failing to report the incident despite knowing her colleague had been treated in this manner.
Sullivan, who had served seven years with the health board, was dismissed for gross misconduct. She did not attend the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) fitness to practise hearing.
In her decision to remove her from the nursing register, Ms Newman declared: “Miss Sullivan’s actions were significant departures from the standards expected of a registered nurse and are fundamentally incompatible with her remaining on the register.
“[Strike-off] is necessary to mark the importance of maintaining public confidence in the profession and to send to the public and the profession a clear message about the standard of behaviour required of a registered nurse.”
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