Faith Chareka
Introduction
Faith Chareka is a registered nurse who worked as a Senior Sister at Band 7 in an emergency department in the United Kingdom, holding registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) under number 00I4666E. In November 2024 she was convicted at Reading Magistrates’ Court of fraud by abuse of position, and in May 2026 an NMC Fitness to Practise Committee found her fitness to practise impaired by reason of that conviction and struck her off the nursing register.
Background Information
Chareka worked as a Band 7 nurse and Senior Sister in an emergency department, a senior nursing role that carried responsibility for the rota of the unit’s nursing staff. Band 7 denotes an experienced, senior practitioner, and the NMC panel later noted that she was a band 7 nurse “with the ability to authorise her own shifts” on the electronic roster system. That combination of seniority and roster access is central to both the offending and the panel’s view of the seriousness of her conduct.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. The conviction for fraud by abuse of position recorded on 1 November 2024 is a court-adjudicated criminal fact, proved in the criminal courts at Reading Magistrates’ Court. The details of the false roster shifts recited below come from the court’s findings as published in the NMC determination. By contrast, the panel’s conclusions — that the conduct amounted to “repeated and premeditated dishonesty over two years”, that it brought the profession into disrepute, and that her fitness to practise is impaired — are civil-standard regulatory findings made by the NMC’s Fitness to Practise Committee, attributed here to that panel.
On 1 November 2024, at Reading Magistrates’ Court, Chareka was convicted of fraud by abuse of position. The court found that, while working as a Band 7 nurse and Senior Sister in an emergency department, she added 50 shifts she had not worked to the electronic health roster between 1 November 2020 and 1 February 2023, receiving a financial benefit of £19,575.41 and 540 hours of time off in lieu. The offending therefore spanned roughly two years of repeated entries on the roster system, generating both payment and accrued leave for shifts never worked.
The NMC’s Fitness to Practise Committee considered the matter at a substantive hearing which started on 22 May 2026 and ended on 28 May 2026. The panel found the charge proved on the basis of the certificate of conviction under Rule 31 of the NMC’s Rules, the mechanism by which a criminal conviction recorded by a court is accepted as proof of the facts underlying it at a regulatory hearing. It determined that the conviction meant her fitness to practise was impaired by reason of that conviction, and it went on to examine the seriousness of the conduct.
The panel found that the conduct involved “repeated and premeditated dishonesty over two years”, that it breached fundamental tenets of the profession including honesty and integrity, and that it brought the profession into disrepute. It found her insight into the misconduct limited, was not satisfied she had addressed the underlying cause of her conduct, and concluded there was a “risk of repetition”. The panel found her fitness to practise impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds, and determined that her conduct was “fundamentally incompatible with remaining on the register”.
In mitigation, the panel identified an early guilty plea during court proceedings, apologies to colleagues and the wider profession, some online training courses undertaken in relation to the areas of concern, compliance with mandatory court requirements, and a reflective account — albeit one the panel described as limited as to the reasons for the misconduct — together with private life challenges. Against that, the panel listed as aggravating factors the abuse of a position of trust in that she was a band 7 nurse with the ability to authorise her own shifts, and conduct that could have had “the potential to negatively impact patient services”. It further cited deliberate breaches of the Code, limited insight into the reasons for the misconduct, a pattern of misconduct over a period of some two years, premeditated behaviour in accessing the roster system on a significant number of occasions to make fraudulent entries, and her “minimising the extent of the dishonesty at the first opportunity to be honest about it”.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The immediate consequence of the hearing was the loss of her registration. On 28 May 2026 the panel made a striking-off order, removing Chareka from the NMC register, and imposed an interim suspension order of 18 months to cover the 28-day appeal period, so that she could not practise in the interim even if an appeal were lodged. The determination was subsequently published and recorded by MedicWatch, an independent record of UK healthcare regulators’ decisions, under its erasures listing for nurses.
Current Status
Faith Chareka is struck off the NMC register, the outcome the regulator calls erasure. She is no longer permitted to practise as a nurse in the United Kingdom. Erasure can be reviewed after a minimum of five years, but is otherwise indefinite, and in the meantime the 18-month interim suspension order covers the appeal period.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The striking-off order ended Chareka’s career as a Band 7 Senior Sister in the NHS, since a nurse cannot practise in the United Kingdom without NMC registration. The conviction itself remains a criminal record, and the panel’s finding that her insight was limited and that there was a risk of repetition means the route back to registration, if any, is a long one: erasure is reviewable only after a minimum of five years and is otherwise indefinite. The financial benefit obtained through the roster fraud — £19,575.41 and 540 hours of time off in lieu — stands alongside the professional consequences recorded in the determination.