Amanda Reid

Introduction

Amanda Reid is a former children’s nurse and healthcare worker in Scotland who was struck off the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register in September 2026 after a panel found she had fraudulently obtained £185,422.95 in pension payments by pretending to be terminally ill with leukaemia. To sustain the deception, Reid shaved her head daily, took weight-loss medication to appear as though she were battling the blood cancer, and forged sixteen medical letters — some bearing the logos of the Spire Hospital Edinburgh — to persuade her GP practice that she was seriously ill. She convinced her family, her children and professionals that she was “at the point of death” despite knowing she was not, according to the NMC. Her conduct was not only a regulatory matter: in September 2025 she pleaded guilty at Livingston Sheriff Court to defrauding the Scottish Pensions Authority and was jailed for two years.

Background Information

Reid worked as a children’s nurse in Scotland before the fraud came to light, and was described in coverage of her NMC hearing as a former healthcare worker. Details of her early life and nursing career have not been widely reported; the public record of her case begins with the pension fraud and the medical deception that sustained it. Over a period of more than three years, between April 2021 and August 2024, she claimed to the Scottish Pensions Authority that she was terminally ill with leukaemia and therefore entitled to specific payments. During the same offending period she also fraudulently acquired controlled drugs from the NHS. Reid has claimed that she has Munchausen’s syndrome, a psychological condition in which people pretend to be ill or produce symptoms of illness in themselves, and that she was not motivated by financial gain.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. Reid’s guilty plea at Livingston Sheriff Court in September 2025 to defrauding the Scottish Pensions Authority of £185,442.95, and the two-year jail sentence imposed for it, are matters of criminal court record: the fraud was admitted, not merely alleged. The findings that followed — including that her dishonesty was sustained, deliberate and premeditated — are those of an NMC panel and are regulatory findings to civil-standard proof, not criminal convictions. Her claim to have Munchausen’s syndrome remains unverified: a social worker report compiled ahead of sentencing said they had been “unable to independently verify” the diagnosis, and no finding endorsed it.

The scheme ran from April 13, 2021 to August 31, 2024. Reid falsely told the Scottish Pensions Authority that she was terminally ill with leukaemia and therefore entitled to specific payments, receiving £185,422.95 in pension payments in total. To make the illness credible she staged its outward signs: she shaved her head daily, took weight-loss medication, and forged a total of sixteen medical letters to persuade her GP practice she was seriously ill, with some letters carrying the logos of the Spire Hospital Edinburgh. The deception extended to her own family — the NMC said she convinced her family, children and professionals that she was “at the point of death” while knowing she was not. During the same period she fraudulently acquired controlled drugs from the NHS. Some of the fraud proceeds were spent on a trip to Dubai, which the NMC panel noted when quoting the judge’s sentencing remarks. The case came to a criminal conclusion first: her guilty plea in September 2025 covered the full sum of £185,442.95 defrauded from the pensions authority.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Reid was jailed for two years at Livingston Sheriff Court. The fraud and the strike-off that followed drew coverage centred on the extraordinary lengths of the deception — the daily head-shaving, the forged hospital letters and the Dubai holiday funded by money obtained through a fabricated terminal diagnosis. At the NMC proceedings, which were held online in Scotland, Reid made no submissions in her defence. Striking her off the register, the panel, chaired by John Millar, found there was “no evidence of insight or remorse”. In its written judgement, the panel stated: “The panel considered that the dishonesty in this case was sustained, deliberate, premeditated, involving criminal fraud and financial gain.” It added that “there was a pattern of dishonesty in relation to multiple health services, agencies and family members over a period of three years.” The panel also noted that although it had no evidence Reid had put patients at risk of harm, her conviction provided clear evidence of repeated dishonest behaviour over a prolonged period of three years, and that the behaviours raised significant concerns indicating deep-seated attitudinal issues.

Current Status

Reid is serving a two-year prison sentence imposed at Livingston Sheriff Court, and as of the September 2026 ruling she has been struck off the NMC register, ending her registration as a nurse in the UK. The panel determined that her type of dishonest conduct, should it be repeated in a clinical setting, could be liable to put patients at risk of harm in the future — a finding it reached while acknowledging it had no evidence that patients had actually been put at risk during her career. Her Munchausen’s syndrome claim, which she has offered as context for her conduct and as evidence she lacked a financial motive, has not been independently verified; the social worker report prepared before her sentencing recorded that the diagnosis could not be confirmed.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The strike-off permanently removed Reid from the profession she had trained in and worked in as a children’s nurse, and the two-year prison term made the consequences criminal as well as professional. Beyond the loss of her registration, the case documented the collapse of the personal world her deception created: the panel’s judgement recorded a three-year pattern of dishonesty involving multiple health services, agencies and her own family members, whom she had led to believe she was dying. The scheme’s proceeds — more than £185,000 in pension payments — were partly consumed by a trip to Dubai rather than preserved, and her conviction now forms part of the permanent record the NMC cited in removing her. The panel’s conclusion that she showed no insight or remorse, and its finding of deep-seated attitudinal issues, foreclosed any realistic prospect of a return to nursing even after her release.