Anthony Andrews

Introduction

Anthony Andrews is a mental health nurse who was struck off the Nursing and Midwifery Council register after a panel found he acted “dangerously and dishonestly” toward patients in South West London, including giving a hospital patient the wrong medication through a tracheostomy tube in an incident that left the patient in respiratory distress. The panel’s ruling, released in January 2026 after hearings in December that he did not attend, found a pattern of deception spanning more than two years — from failing to disclose restrictions on his practice to working while suspended. Andrews worked through nursing agencies on placements that included the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney, and the hospital’s referral after the September 2023 incidents set the regulatory process in motion.

Background Information

Andrews — whose full name was given in the proceedings as Anthony J B D P Andrews — worked as an agency mental health nurse across South West London, engaged through the agencies Care Staff Solutions and Pulse Nursing rather than being employed directly by the hospitals where he worked. His placements included the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney, St George’s (Mental Health) NHS Trust, and the NHS Talking Therapies team at West London NHS Trust. In 2021 the NMC had imposed temporary restrictions on his practice, and in May 2022 a medication error triggered a requirement to notify the regulator within seven days — obligations that became part of the case against him when the panel found he had breached them.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. The findings described here are a matter of panel record: a Nursing and Midwifery Council misconduct panel found the charges against Andrews proved and struck him from the register. These are regulatory findings, not criminal convictions: he was never criminally charged.

On 8 September 2023, at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney, Andrews gave medication to a patient who was not under his care. The patient’s family reported trying to stop him and being ignored. He administered the medication through the patient’s tracheostomy tube using a route that would have taken “considerable force” — and the medication was incorrect: he had mistaken the patient for someone else and failed to check records. The patient coughed, showed signs of respiratory distress and was stabilised. The same day, he gave medication to another patient without checking records. The panel found he had accepted the shift knowing he lacked tracheostomy skills, and had deliberately misled the ward manager by lying that he was trained; it called his conduct “egregious and deplorable”. Around that incident sat a longer pattern: he failed to give South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust a copy of the 2021 NMC temporary restrictions order; he breached that order by failing to notify the NMC within seven days of the May 2022 medication error; and after an interim suspension in November 2023 he worked five shifts for West London NHS Trust without telling them he had been suspended, with the panel finding he had deliberately not checked the hearing outcome.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability referred the matter to the NMC on 11 September 2023, three days after the incidents; Andrews was employed by agencies, not the hospital itself. The NMC panel found the charges proved, and its ruling was released in January 2026 after hearings in December 2025 that he did not attend. The panel found patients had been “put at risk and there was serious potential risk of harm”, that his misconduct “breached fundamental tenets of the nursing profession and therefore brought its reputation into disrepute”, and that although there was some remorse, there was no evidence he understood the seriousness of what he had done. His “conduct was dangerous and dishonest and is unremedied”, the panel found, noting his lack of insight, lack of remediation and lack of strengthening of practice.

Current Status

Andrews was struck from the NMC register, and an 18-month interim suspension order covers any appeal period. The findings are regulatory, not criminal: the charges were proved before an NMC misconduct panel in professional proceedings, and he was never criminally charged. He did not attend the December hearings, and the panel found he had deliberately avoided learning the outcome of his case — the same pattern of avoidance the panel identified across the two and a half years of deception, from the undisclosed 2021 restrictions to the shifts worked while suspended.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The strike-off ends Andrews’s ability to work as a nurse in the United Kingdom, closing off the agency-based career that had taken him through placements at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, St George’s (Mental Health) NHS Trust and West London NHS Trust. The panel’s conclusions — dangerous and dishonest conduct, unremedied, without insight — leave no realistic route back to the register short of a successful appeal, which the 18-month interim suspension order covers. The case also illustrates the gap agency working can leave in clinical oversight: Andrews was employed by agencies rather than by the hospital where the September 2023 incidents occurred, and the deception about his tracheostomy training was directed at a ward manager who had no direct employment relationship with him.

Sources

• Putney.news, “Royal Hospital Putney nurse struck off after dangerous medication errors and years of deception”, 20 January 2026. source