Hazel Claire Pitches
Introduction
Hazel Claire Pitches is a registered nurse who was suspended for twelve months by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) on 19 March 2026, after a hearing spanning most of March 2026. The panel found a lack of competence in drug calculations and medication administration at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, and misconduct in the form of insulin administration and documentation failures involving a care-home resident, plus further medication and record-keeping failures at a second home. Her fitness to practise was found impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds, with the panel citing a real risk of serious harm to patients across multiple settings — and an 18-month interim suspension order covers any appeal .
Background Information
The case surveys Pitches’ practice as a Band 5 registered nurse across three employers between November 2021 and June 2024: an acute trust, a community provider, and two care homes. The charges divide into competence (the drug-calculation failures), a disputed honesty charge about an NMC referral, and the care-home insulin and records strands. The panel’s split findings matter: the dishonesty charge failed, while the competence and misconduct strands largely succeeded .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated (regulatory). The findings below are those of an NMC Fitness to Practise Committee — a civil regulatory process, not a criminal conviction.
Charges 1 and 2 concerned Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust: failing a Medicines Assessment, being unable to perform drug calculations across multiple dates, and errors during a mock medication assessment in January 2022. These were found proved and categorised as lack of competence .
Charges 3 and 4 concerned what she told a colleague at Kent Community Foundation Trust: charge 3 alleged she stated she had no knowledge of an NMC referral; charge 4 alleged that statement was dishonest. The panel found charge 3 proved but charge 4 not proved — the false claim about her knowledge stands as a finding, but the panel did not find it dishonest. Charges 5 and 6 are marked as private in the public record; the panel found no case to answer on them in the form originally pleaded, while other limbs of those charges were found proved. What those limbs concerned is not in the public record and is not speculated on here .
Charges 7 to 13 concerned Silver Springs Care Home in August 2023: insulin administration and documentation failures relating to Resident A. Charges 14 and 15 concerned L’Hermitage Care Home in May and June 2024: medication administration and record-keeping failures. These were found proved and categorised as misconduct .
The panel determined her fitness to practise was currently impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds, finding “a real risk of serious harm to patients across multiple settings”, limited insight, and a continuing risk of repetition. In mitigation it credited the early admission of the facts, her engagement with the NMC process including attendance and meaningful participation throughout the hearings, evidence of some remorse, and a further mitigating factor that the public record marks as private. In aggravation: conduct that put people receiving care at risk of harm, a pattern of lack of competence and misconduct over time, limited insight, and a failure to prioritise vulnerable patients .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The consequence is the twelve-month suspension order with a review hearing at the end of that period, imposed on 19 March 2026, plus the 18-month interim suspension pending appeal. The case is recorded in MedicWatch’s listing of nurses suspended in 2026; no public statement from Pitches or from any of the three employers appears in the fetched record beyond the determination itself .
Because the case spans an NHS trust, a community provider and two care homes, the findings function as a cross-employer record: each proved insulin or records failing at the homes is a matter any future CQC-registered employer will surface in pre-employment regulatory checks. Nothing in the fetched record establishes any criminal charge, and none should be inferred .
Current Status
Pitches is a suspended nurse under a twelve-month order imposed on 19 March 2026, with a review scheduled at the end of the period and the 18-month interim order in force across any appeal. The review will test the panel’s central concerns — insight and repetition risk across settings — against whatever evidence of strengthened practice she produces by then .
Impact on Their Career/Life
The dual grounding — lack of competence in the fundamentals of medication safety, plus proved misconduct in the records that are supposed to catch such failures — is what makes this case travel: the panel found the risk ran across multiple settings, not one bad workplace. The failed dishonesty charge and the credited engagement are the counterweights that pulled the outcome to suspension rather than erasure. Whether the twelve months buy the insight the panel found missing is the open question the review will answer .