Nurse claimed agency payments while on hospital salary

A nurse who worked at Cork University Hospital billed an agency for her time while also receiving a salary from the hospital, a Nursing and Midwifery Board fitness to practise inquiry has been told.

The inquiry which opened in Blackrock, Dublin, this morning heard nurse Elaine Mary Houlihan benefited from extra payments after the signature of her clinical nurse manager Ann Higgins, was forged on time sheets.

The time sheets were subsequently submitted for payment to the HSE national supplier of agency nurses, Nurse on Call.

In addition to being paid by the hospital and billing the agency for the same days, Nurse Houlihan also claimed payment from for shifts that she had not worked, the inquiry heard.

Ms Houlihan received additional payments of slightly more than €20,000 between March and October 2012, Elaine Finneran counsel for the chief executive of the Nursing Board told the inquiry.

Ms Finneran said the falsified timesheets came to light just days before Ms Houlihan was due to leave for a new life in New Zealand, and gardai were called.

In a subsequent prosecution for theft in the district court, Ms Houlihan had pleaded guilty and was given the benefit of the Probation Act, so a conviction was not recorded against her, Ms Finneran said. Ms Finneran added the amount of just over €20,000 had been repaid to Nurse on Call.

Director of nursing Mary Mills told the inquiry Nurse Houlihan had qualified as a nurse in 2010, but at that time could not be employed directly by the hospital because of an embargo on recruitment. She was however employed in the hospital through Nurse on Call, which had received the HSE national contract for supplying agency nursing.

Ms Mills said two days before Ms Houlihan’s last day at the hospital, a question was raised about the identity of Ms Houlihan’s employer. Ms Mills said she checked the paperwork and immediately noticed a misspelling in the signature of the clinical manager, Ann Higgins. Ms Mills said the name had been spelled “Anne”, when Ms Higgins always used “Ann”.

Ms Mills said she confronted Ms Houlihan about the matter and Ms Houlihan immediately confessed she had made false claims.

Ms Mills agreed with Ms Houlihan’s solicitor Michael Doody that there was “no question” about Ms Houlihan’s professional ability to provide care.

Mr Doody told the inquiry that Ms Houlihan did not deny the allegations and admitted they amounted to conduct unbecoming of a nurse, but did not accept they amounted to gross professional misconduct.

The hearing is due to hear from Ms Houlihan by conference call from New Zealand later today.