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UK nurse who contracted Ebola cleared of misconduct charge

Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey has been cleared of professional misconduct on her return to the UK.

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Ms Cafferkey has been cleared of misconduct over her return to the United Kingdom with the virus.

An independent panel found that three charges against Ms Cafferkey were not proven, meaning her fitness to practise was “not impaired”.

The panel also heard claims the conduct of the medical worker, from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, had “undermined” public trust and confidence in the nursing profession.

The NMC, which has been investigating Ms Cafferkey’s conduct, alleged at that stage that she “allowed an incorrect temperature to be recorded” on December 29 2014 and “intended to hide from Public Health England staff that you had a temperature higher than 38C”.

Ms Cafferkey had not set out to mislead Public Health England, the panel said.

EBOLA nurse Pauline Cafferkey has been cleared of professional misconduct following allegations about hiding symptoms of the deadly virus on her return to the UK.

She was diagnosed with Ebola the same day and spent nearly a month being treated in an isolation unit at the Royal Free in Hampstead.

She came close to death on two separate occasions as the virus lingered in her system and developed meningitis in September 2015.

Ms Cullen added that the nurse’s previously unblemished record could make it all the more likely that she was acting out of character as a result of exhaustion and illness.

It was heard that a temperature above 37.5C “is an elevated or pyrexial (feverish) temperature that requires further assessment and should be reported to a consultant”.

“Dr one says that registrant A (someone else in the group) stated at this point that she would record the temperature as 37.2 degrees on Ms Cafferkey’s screening form and then they would “get out of here and sort it out”, the evidence states.

Speaking after the hearing had finished, Ms Cullen said Ms Cafferkey would never knowingly place anyone in danger, and was “relieved the process is at an end”.

The decision to clear Ms Cafferkey was based on an agreed narrative of facts which had been presented to the panel on Tuesday.

Ms Cafferkey admitted taking paracetamol at some point but did not mention it to a doctor when she returned to the screening areas.

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On Wednesday, the panel resumed its deliberations before delivering its verdict.

Pauline Cafferkey the nurse who survived Ebola arrives to face a Nursing and Midwifery Council misconduct panel in Edinburgh Scotland Wednesday Sept. 14