A CARER has been struck off after accepting heavy painkillers and money totalling over £1,200 from a patient.
Pamela Duff had money sent to her own account from a service user on 48 occasions over 10 months while employed by Carewatch in Irvine, North Ayrshire.
The bank transfers ranged from as little as £2 to as much as £75 at a time and took place almost twice a week for months.
The money was apparently transferred to pay for cigarettes and food for the service user.
While employed by Carewatch, Duff also text the same service user on four occasions to ask for strong Shortec and Longtec painkillers.
The incidents are said to have taken place between December 2019 and October 2020.
The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) decided to remove Duff from their register on Friday following the incidents.
The SSSC said: “Social service workers are trusted to care for the most vulnerable members of society.
“You accepted money for varying purposes and medication from a service user while employed as his carer and beyond.
“This involved repeated instances of this behaviour over nearly 10 months.
“It is behaviour indicative of your values that is not easily remediable, if at all.
“It is a gross breach of trust and was behaviour that fell far below the standards expected of a social service worker.
“While there is no indication that there have been previous such issues, your apparent reasoning that you were trying to improve the service user’s life and had their consent to accept money and medication demonstrates that you do not understand proper professional boundaries.”
On making their decision to remove Duff from the register, the SSSC said: “There is a lack of developed insight into the seriousness of your behaviour and no understanding of professional boundaries.
“The behaviour occurred during your social service work and outside facilitated by the development of a friendship in work.
“The incident formed a pattern of behaviour over nearly a 10 month period.
“The behaviour resulted in emotional harm to the service user.
“The behaviour could have resulted in physical and financial harm to the service if he had insufficient medication or if money was not paid back to the service user.
“There was a clear abuse of trust given the influence the worker had to obtain money and medication.
“We decided to impose a removal order, removing your registration from the SSSC register.”
