A SCOTTISH nurse who landed a job after claiming he worked in the fictional hospital from TV show ER faces being struck off.
Greig Ferguson, from Campbeltown, Argyll, claimed to have worked at the County General Hospital in Chicago, an institution which only exists in the NBC series starring George Clooney.
Despite that, he landed a job as an emergency nurse practitioner at St Mary’s Treatment Centre in Portsmouth.
The nurse also got away with falsely claiming to be a qualified doctor and sported a badge marked “Dr Greig Ferguson MD”.
Ferguson also falsely claimed he had seen action as a medic with the Royal Marines in Bosnia and the Gulf.
Conviction
But in January 2010 he was sentenced to 150 hours’ community service after admitting two counts of fraud at Portsmouth Crown Court.
It has now been revealed that Ferguson, who was 35 at the time of his trial, will be called before a hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) next month.
The NMC alleges that Ferguson’s fitness to practise is impaired as a result of his criminal conviction.
He is separately charged with dishonestly giving information in a job application which was not accurate.
If the charges are found proved, Ferguson could be struck off.
Ferguson’s deception came to light after he received treatment from a consultant in October 2008.
Inflated
The consultant became suspicious about Ferguson, his background was investigated, and he was dismissed by his employers Care UK.
His barrister told the judge at his subsequent trial: “I know not whether your Honour is, or was, ever a devotee of a certain Channel 4 drama but the hospital on his CV in Chicago was the hospital starring in ER.”
He continued: “‘There can be few people in this country who at one stage or another have not inflated or said something to increase their standing.
“Whether that is with a work colleague, whether it’s to impress a potential girlfriend or her parents or whether it’s perhaps to do what Jeffrey Archer did, to make themselves seem better, that’s all this man did.”
Sentencing him to 150 hours community service, Judge Roger Hetherington said: “It’s a very serious matter when people obtain work, in particular dealing with the health of members of the public, at any rate in part on the basis of putting forward false qualifications and experience.”
The company which employed him, Care UK, said he was qualified for the role in which he worked, and he was dismissed as soon as his deception about his other qualifications came to light.
