Henrietta Gibson-Leigertwood
Introduction
Henrietta Gibson-Leigertwood is a registered nurse who was suspended for three months by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) on 3 July 2026, after a Fitness to Practise Committee panel found — on her own admissions — that she grabbed a vulnerable mental health patient without clinical justification, pulled the patient by the hair, failed to use de-escalation techniques, and then made an inaccurate and dishonest incident report claiming the patient had attacked her. The panel found her fitness to practise impaired by reason of misconduct and imposed the suspension with a review, plus an 18-month interim suspension order .
Background Information
The incident took place on 10 November 2022 and involved Patient A, a vulnerable mental health patient. More than two and a half years passed between the incident and the concluded hearing, which sat from 1 to 3 July 2026. The charges were found proved entirely by way of the registrant’s admissions — Gibson-Leigertwood accepted the physical conduct, the false record and the dishonesty .
That admission posture shaped the whole case: there was no contested evidence about what happened in the ward, only the regulator’s assessment of what the admitted conduct meant for her registration .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated (regulatory). The findings below were made by an NMC panel on the balance of probabilities — a civil standard, not a criminal conviction. All charges were admitted.
The first charge had three limbs: that on 10 November 2022 she (a) grabbed Patient A without clinical justification, (b) pulled Patient A by the hair, and (c) did not use the de-escalation technique. The second charge was that she recorded an inaccurate entry on the Datix incident system — the log hospitals use for patient-safety events — stating that Patient A had “suddenly attacked” her. The third charge was that this entry was dishonest, in that she sought to represent that Patient A had attacked her when this was not true. All were proved .
The panel determined that the facts amounted to serious misconduct, breaching the NMC Code’s duties to treat people with kindness and respect, to complete records accurately, and to act with honesty and integrity. Applying the Grant test, it found all four limbs engaged — a rare full sweep that covers both the public protection and confidence dimensions. It concluded there was a “low but real risk of repetition”, in part because the registrant had not yet demonstrated sufficient strengthening of practice, and found her fitness to practise currently impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds .
The dishonesty limb is what elevated the case. A physical incident during a mental health ward confrontation, with de-escalation skipped, is serious patient-facing misconduct; converting it into an official record that inverts the roles — the vulnerable patient recast as the attacker — is what made the third charge, and the panel’s treatment of the whole incident, about integrity rather than a single bad night .
Public Reaction and Consequences
In mitigation the panel credited the early admissions, genuine remorse and apologies to anyone affected, personal circumstances and a difficult workplace environment at the time, 25 years of otherwise unblemished practice, and no further concerns since the incident. The aggravating list was longer: conduct which recklessly put patients receiving care at risk of harm, actual harm caused to a vulnerable mental health patient, a breach of the fundamentals of nursing care, insufficient evidence of retraining demonstrating a strengthening of practice — and dishonesty .
The outcome was a three-month suspension with a review and an 18-month interim suspension covering the appeal period. The case is recorded in the NMC’s 2026 suspension list. No separate criminal proceeding or public statement from an employer appears in the fetched record; the visible consequences are regulatory .
Current Status
Gibson-Leigertwood is a suspended nurse. The three-month suspension was imposed on 3 July 2026 with a review, and the interim suspension runs for 18 months to cover any appeal. Because the order carries a review, her registration will be reconsidered before the suspension ends; the panel’s finding that strengthening of practice had not yet been demonstrated is the specific gap any review will examine .
Impact on Their Career/Life
A 25-year nursing record without concerns now carries admitted findings of grabbing and hair-pulling a vulnerable patient, skipping de-escalation, and falsifying the incident record to claim she was the victim of an attack. The panel found actual harm to the patient and dishonesty — the two aggravating features regulators weigh most heavily.
The three-month term and the panel’s credit for remorse reflect the admissions and the long unblemished history; the “low but real” repetition risk and the missing retraining evidence are why the matter did not end in erasure. What remains with her is a permanent record that the official account of a patient incident was turned on its head — in nursing regulation, among the hardest findings to explain away at any future job or review .