Janet Valerie Burroughs
Introduction
Janet Valerie Burroughs is a former UK registered nurse whose career ended in erasure from the professional register. She worked at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, and on 14 May 2026 the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee struck her off at the end of a substantive hearing that had begun on 12 May 2026. The panel found that she had dishonestly requested and taken Lorazepam tablets belonging to the trust without clinical justification, intending to give them to a relative, concluded that her dishonesty and abuse of trust were incompatible with continued registration, and made a striking-off order. The determination is recorded by MedicWatch, an independent record of UK healthcare regulator decisions.
Background Information
The conduct that ended her career was alleged to have taken place at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust between 1 May 2024 and 30 June 2024. Burroughs was registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council under registration number 71F1138E, and the panel would later describe her as an experienced nurse. The charges centred on Lorazepam belonging to the trust: it was alleged that she requested the drug from a colleague without clinical justification, intending to take it home to administer to her relative; that on one or more occasions in the same period she took Lorazepam tablets without clinical justification; and that her conduct was dishonest because she took medication belonging to the Trust when she knew she was not entitled to do so. As put to the panel, these were allegations; the findings below are the committee’s answers to them.
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; every charge against Janet Valerie Burroughs was found proved, so there is no list of not-proved charges to set against them. Panels do not convict; nothing here is a criminal conviction unless the determination itself records one.
The panel found all three charges proved: that on or around 17 June 2024 and/or 19 June 2024 she requested Lorazepam from a colleague without clinical justification, which she intended to take home to administer to her relative; that on one or more occasions between 1 May 2024 and 30 June 2024 she took one or more Lorazepam tablets without clinical justification; and that her conduct was dishonest in that she intended to take and/or did take medication belonging to the Trust when she knew she was not entitled to do so. The dishonesty finding was made applying the test in Ivey v Genting.
On those findings it concluded that the conduct amounted to misconduct, identifying the potential for harm to patients on the stroke unit and to her relative, and an abuse of her position of trust as an experienced nurse. Fitness to practise was found impaired on public protection and public interest grounds.
In mitigation, the panel noted Ms Burroughs’s early admissions to both the NMC and the Trust, her remorse and partial apologies, and the personal context she provided for her circumstances at the time; there were no previous concerns during her longstanding career as a nurse. Against that it set aggravating factors: stealing the medication meant there was the potential that there may not have been enough stock for patients; the actions were not an isolated incident; they amounted to an abuse of position of trust; and the concerns were directly linked to her clinical practice.
Public Reaction and Consequences
On sanction, the panel decided that a striking-off order was the only sufficient sanction. Although Ms Burroughs had retired and stated she had no intention of returning to nursing, the panel concluded that her dishonesty and abuse of trust were incompatible with continued registration, and an 18-month interim suspension order was imposed to cover the appeal period.
Because the matter was decided by her professional regulator rather than a criminal court, the consequences were regulatory — but few are more severe. Erasure removed her from the NMC register, ending her ability to practise as a nurse in the UK. The determination now forms part of the permanent public record of NMC decisions, and independent record services such as MedicWatch document the outcome against her name and registration number, so any employer, agency or member of the public who checks her registration encounters the erasure and the findings behind it.
Current Status
As of the decision date of 14 May 2026, Burroughs stands erased from the NMC register — struck off, in the ordinary phrasing — and is no longer permitted to practise as a nurse in the UK. Her MedicWatch profile records her as erased from the register at last register check, with the record last verified against the Nursing and Midwifery Council register on 16 July 2026. The 18-month interim suspension order covers the appeal period, and neither the determination nor her profile records any appeal. The striking-off order thus formalised a career exit that had, by May 2026, already taken place — but it leaves her removed from the register on which any nursing practice depends.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The immediate career impact is that Burroughs’s nursing career in the UK is finished: she was struck off, and she had already told the panel she did not intend to return. What the findings add is permanence and character. The record now shows a panel finding, on the balance of probabilities and applying the Ivey v Genting test, that an experienced nurse dishonestly obtained medication belonging to her NHS trust to give to a relative, with the potential that patients on the stroke unit would have gone short. A proved finding of dishonesty is among the most serious the NMC can record; here the panel treated it as incompatible with continued registration despite early admissions, remorse and a previously unblemished career. Those findings remain attached to her name and registration number in the public record.