A FORMER Hywel Dda Health Board nurse who illegally accessed thousands of patient records has been struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Elaine Anne Lewis, who worked at Glangwili Hospital, was fined by Llanelli magistrates after she admitted the data breaches that saw her access confidential records of over 3,000 patients across the health board area between July 2013 and September 2015.

She has now been struck off by a fitness to practice committee of the NMC after the committee ruled that the data breach and other allegations of misconduct were a “serious departure from the standards of conduct and ethics to be expected of a registered nurse”.

Mrs Lewis was dismissed by Hywel Dda after it emerged that she had accessed patient records without permission and told health chiefs she had done so for her “own interest”.

The NMC hearing heard that as well as accessing the patient records, Mrs Lewis had also left patients unattended in Glangwili Hospital’s discharge room, had lied about a patient falling, had left the discharge room unattended, and had closed the discharge room early without permission and left work early.

During the hearing, the committee heard that Mrs Lewis, who did not attend the hearing, had no intention of returning to nursing, but the committee decided to strike her off.

A report into the hearing said: “The panel found that Mrs Lewis’s actions, both individually and cumulatively, fell seriously short of the conduct and standards expected of a nurse and amounted to professional misconduct which was very serious."

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