Gemma Louise Banks
Introduction
Gemma Louise Banks was a nursing associate registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the statutory regulator for nurses, midwives and nursing associates in the United Kingdom. In July 2024 she was convicted at Snaresbrook Crown Court of two offences of being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs — heroin and crack cocaine — committed across a period of nearly five months in 2023. The offences had no direct connection to clinical practice, but they placed a registered healthcare professional before her regulator on the footing of a criminal conviction for Class A drug supply.
At a substantive hearing on 18 May 2026, the NMC’s Fitness to Practise Committee found Banks’ fitness to practise currently impaired and imposed a striking-off order, with an 18-month interim suspension order to cover any appeal period.
Background Information
Banks was registered as a nursing associate with the NMC under personal identification number 19A2364E. The offending that led to the criminal case ran from 15 May 2023 to 11 October 2023.
On 24 July 2024 she was convicted at Snaresbrook Crown Court of two offences of being concerned in the supplying of a controlled drug: the first concerning heroin, a Class A drug, in contravention of section 4(3) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and the second concerning crack cocaine, also Class A, over the same period, in contravention of section 4(3)(b) of that Act. The court sentenced her to 24 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 24 months, with a rehabilitation activity requirement.
The determination records that Banks had no previous criminal convictions. Her engagement with the NMC once the regulatory case was under way was later recorded by the panel as very limited, a factor it treated as aggravating.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. The findings in this section come from a Nursing and Midwifery Council fitness-to-practise panel determination, which decided the charges on the balance of probabilities. Charges found proved are court-of-record-equivalent regulatory findings; no charge against Banks was found NOT proved — the panel found Charge 1 proved in its entirety on the certificate of conviction. Panels do not convict; in this case, however, the determination itself records criminal convictions, entered at Snaresbrook Crown Court on 24 July 2024 and proved under Rule 31(2) and (3).
The matter was decided at a substantive hearing before the NMC’s Fitness to Practise Committee which began on 18 May 2026, the same day the decision was issued. The charge put to the panel rested on the certificate of conviction from Snaresbrook Crown Court, and under Rule 31(2) and (3) the panel found Charge 1 proved in its entirety on that basis.
The panel described the convictions as very serious. Although not directly related to clinical practice, they had, in the panel’s finding, brought the nursing associate profession into disrepute and breached fundamental tenets of the profession. With no evidence of insight, remorse or strengthened practice before it, the panel found Banks’ fitness to practise currently impaired, on both public protection and public interest grounds.
In mitigation, the panel noted her lack of previous criminal convictions and some evidence of remorse demonstrated during the criminal proceedings. Against her, it found that the offending behaviour had resulted in personal financial gain, and that her engagement with the NMC had been very limited.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The principal consequence was the regulator’s sanction. The panel decided the convictions were fundamentally incompatible with Banks remaining on the register and imposed a striking-off order, removing her name from the NMC register. Because the decision is subject to appeal provisions, the panel also imposed an 18-month interim suspension order to cover any appeal period.
The outcome was published in MedicWatch’s independent record of regulator decisions, which lists the case as an erasure — struck off the register — decided on 18 May 2026 by the NMC at a substantive hearing, and links the underlying determination. The sources record no public comment from Banks. The panel noted some evidence of remorse during the criminal proceedings, but found no evidence of insight, remorse or strengthened practice before it, and its finding that the convictions brought the profession into disrepute carried the case’s public-interest dimension.
Current Status
Banks was erased from the register by the decision dated 18 May 2026. MedicWatch’s practitioner profile, last verified against the NMC register on 16 July 2026, recorded her as erased from the register at the last register check, with the erasure as her most recent published outcome. The 18-month interim suspension order covers any appeal period; the sources do not record whether any appeal was brought. Her current registration status can be checked against the official NMC register.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The striking-off order ended Banks’ registration as a nursing associate. The panel’s conclusion that the convictions were fundamentally incompatible with her remaining on the register followed its findings that the offending breached fundamental tenets of the profession and brought it into disrepute.
The criminal conviction carried consequences of its own, recorded in the determination: a 24-month custodial sentence suspended for 24 months and a rehabilitation activity requirement, imposed by the Crown Court in July 2024. The panel identified personal financial gain from the offending as an aggravating factor, weighed against the absence of previous convictions, and found impairment on public protection and public interest grounds.