Gabrielle Jean Prettyman
Introduction
Gabrielle Jean Prettyman is a former registered nurse whose name was removed from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register in July 2026 after a Fitness to Practise Committee panel found that her failings as registered manager of Lound Hall Care Home had left multiple residents without adequate care planning, wound management, nutrition monitoring and record keeping. The case covered a sustained period of failures in 2016 and 2017, compounded by a failure to act on concerns raised by external regulators. The panel found her fitness to practise impaired by reason of misconduct and imposed a striking-off order, the sanction the regulator calls erasure .
Background Information
Prettyman was a registered nurse, identified by NMC personal identification number 82F0302E, serving as Registered Manager of Lound Hall Care Home in Norfolk. In that role she carried responsibility for ensuring that adequate systems of care were in place for the home’s residents.
The charges brought by the NMC alleged that, as Registered Manager, she failed in relation to multiple residents to ensure that repositioning records, wound care plans, wound assessments and body maps were in place; that dietetic referrals or GP reviews took place following weight loss; and that care plans existed for pressure areas, nutrition, choking risk, continence, communication and personal hygiene. Further charges covered failures to ensure that fluid intake was monitored and recorded, that pressure mattresses were checked and audited, and that call bells were answered promptly .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated (regulatory). The findings in this section were made by a Nursing and Midwifery Council Fitness to Practise Committee panel on the balance of probabilities — a civil standard, not a criminal conviction. The panel found the majority of charges proved; a small number of charges were found not proved or had no case to answer.
The substantive hearing began on 21 July 2025 and ended on 8 July 2026. The allegations centred on the years 2016 and 2017, during which the home’s systems for monitoring and recording resident care were said to have broken down across numerous residents. A further charge alleged that Prettyman failed to notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) of a grade 4 pressure ulcer — the most serious category of pressure damage — and another that she failed to act on concerns raised by the CQC and the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) between 1 January 2017 and 8 January 2018 .
The panel found the majority of charges proved. The facts found proved included widespread failures of care planning, wound management, weight and nutrition monitoring, fluid intake recording and record keeping across numerous residents; failure to notify the CQC of a grade 4 pressure ulcer; and failure to act adequately or at all on concerns raised by the CQC and the CCG. It is important to state honestly what was not found against her: the panel determined there was no case to answer on charges 7, 9 and 11b, and found a small number of further charges not proved .
On the proved charges, the panel determined that Prettyman’s failings amounted to misconduct and that her fitness to practise is currently impaired. The recorded sanction is a striking-off order, with an 18-month interim suspension order .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The determination records the consequences within the regulatory process rather than a wider public controversy. The failings found proved were systemic in character: they concerned the manager’s responsibility for the home’s care systems as a whole rather than a single incident with a single resident. External scrutiny formed a central part of the case — the panel found that Prettyman failed to act adequately or at all on concerns raised by both the CQC and the CCG over the course of 2017 and early 2018, meaning that weaknesses identified by the sector’s own inspectorate went unaddressed .
The case is also connected to that of Margaret Jane Cooper, the home’s deputy manager, who was struck off by the NMC following a substantive hearing that ran in the same July 2025 to July 2026 window. The parallel proceedings reflect the scale of the regulatory concern at Lound Hall Care Home during the period in question, with both the home’s most senior managers appearing before Fitness to Practise panels over failures in the same home .
Current Status
Gabrielle Jean Prettyman was struck off the NMC register on 8 July 2026. Erasure removes a practitioner from the register entirely: she is no longer permitted to practise as a nurse in the UK. An erasure order can be reviewed after a minimum of five years, but is otherwise indefinite, so any application to return to the register lies years ahead and is not guaranteed to succeed. Alongside the striking-off order, the panel imposed an 18-month interim suspension order .
Impact on Their Career/Life
The striking-off order ended Prettyman’s nursing career in the UK. A registered nurse who held the most senior managerial post at a care home — a position carrying legal responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable residents — is now removed from the professional register and barred from practising her profession. The panel’s findings compound the professional consequence: a record of widespread failures in the fundamentals of care, a failure to notify the regulator of the most serious grade of pressure damage, and a failure to respond to external oversight over a sustained period. Because the MedicWatch record of the determination does not set out mitigating factors advanced on her behalf, her route back to registration — if ever attempted after the five-year minimum — would be assessed against the full weight of these findings .