Nursing & Midwifery Council, R (on the application of) v Juru

1. MR JUSTICE BEAN: This is an application by the Nursing & Midwifery Council ("NMC") to extend the interim suspension order originally made by the Council's Practice Committee on 22 October 2010 and reviewed since then on four occasions. We are coming up this weekend to the end of the eighteen-month period for which that interim suspension order was made. Mr Hunt, on behalf of the Council, seeks an extension for a further ten months on the grounds that it is necessary for the protection of the public and is otherwise in the public interest.

2. Miss Juru has been the subject of fitness to practise proceedings before the Irish Board, which is the equivalent in Ireland of the NMC. In November 2008 the Fitness to Practise Committee of the Irish Board recommended that her name be erased from the Register. In September 2009 the High Court of the Republic of Ireland attached a condition to the retention of her name on the Register which effectively translates as two years' suspension and a condition, to avoid erasure, that within those two years the respondent should complete a particular course relating to a return to nursing practice. In November 2011, that condition not having been fulfilled, the Irish Board erased Miss Juru's name from the Register.

3. In the meantime, it is alleged, Miss Juru applied for a nursing position in Guernsey and obtained employment at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital in Guernsey. The NMC alleged that she failed to disclose to the Guernsey authorities that she had been suspended by the Irish Board, and, when asked about an apparent gap in her CV, she alleged that she had been taking care of a sick relative when in fact she had been working in Ireland. There is also an allegation or pair of allegations relating to competence of Miss Juru's activities as a nurse in Guernsey in September and October 2009.

4. These matters taken together, Mr Hunt says, plainly raise a case to answer. That case is to be considered by the NMC's Investigating Committee next month. If it decides to send the case for a substantive hearing, as I imagine it will, that substantive hearing may take some months to conclude and it is advisable to allow a little margin for error if, for example, sickness or something of that kind causes a delay.

5. The maximum period for which an extension may be granted in this court is twelve months. Mr Hunt seeks ten months. I am satisfied that that is a reasonable period. I appreciate that Miss Juru is very concerned about the delay but, having regard to the requirements of the statute as interpreted by the Court of Appeal in the leading case of General Medical Council v Hiew , I am satisfied that the protection of the public requires that a ten-month extension is made and I grant the NMC's application.