Hospital midwife struck off after giving drugs without prescriptions.

A midwife has been struck off after she gave a patient, a colleague and a colleague's husband, painkillers without a prescription.

The midwife, Michelle Busby, was initially suspended from work at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, Somerset, in April 2018.

The allegations, dating from January to May 2015, were proven against her and she was suspended for nine months.

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust said the patient was not harmed and that such wrongdoing was a "rare occurrence.”

The painkiller in question, co-codamol, is a combination of two others, paracetamol and codeine, and is regularly used for pain relief by maternity units but it must be prescribed to patients first.

Mrs Busby, who first qualified as a midwife in September 2007, has not responded to any communication from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) since February 2019 following other suspensions.

The NMC has now removed her registration and said her "continued lack of engagement had reached a point where it was fundamentally incompatible with remaining on the register.”

A Somerset NHS Foundation Trust spokesperson said staff quickly became aware of the "complex and unusual case" and made a referral to the NMC.

The Trust said: "To ensure medicines are managed in line with our trust guidelines, we have multiple monitoring systems in place within our maternity unit, including a daily medicines managements audit, daily ward level stock counts and maternity-specific safety walkabouts.

"These processes are regularly reviewed and updated in line with changes to national standards and our trust policy."