Jay Hobbs
Introduction
Jay Hobbs was a children’s nurse registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) under registration number 11F0456E, working in a paediatric emergency department. On 18 June 2026, an NMC Fitness to Practise Committee struck him off the register after finding that his fitness to practise was impaired by reason of misconduct, including six charges of dishonesty, in his care of four children between March 2022 and April 2023. The panel found that he had put vulnerable patients at unwarranted risk of harm and had dishonestly recorded and reported clinical observations.
Background Information
The charges concerned Mr Hobbs’s care of four children in a paediatric emergency department between March 2022 and April 2023. According to the determination, they included failing to give appropriate discharge advice; failing to escalate a child with a raised Children’s Early Warning Tool score, start the sepsis pathway or review the score; failing to consult a doctor, provide discharge advice or make a safeguarding referral for another child; and failing to adequately check, start a fluid challenge for, or safely discharge a child who was later readmitted and died.
Several charges alleged dishonesty in his clinical record-keeping. These included incorrectly recording that a mother wished to take her child home, and incorrectly telling a mother, and recording, that a child’s heart rate had dropped below 140bpm when it had not, intending to mislead. Mr Hobbs was described in the proceedings as a senior nurse and as nurse in charge, a position of trust the panel later found he had abused.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. The findings against Jay Hobbs were made by an NMC Fitness to Practise Committee on the civil standard (balance of probabilities). They were never criminal charges, and the record shows no criminal convictions; the regulator’s findings are civil findings, not a court’s.
The panel found the majority of the charges proved, including six charges of dishonesty, and found three charges not proved. It found that Mr Hobbs’s conduct breached the NMC Code across multiple areas and amounted to serious misconduct. Applying the Grant test, the panel concluded that he had put patients at unwarranted risk of harm, brought the profession into disrepute, breached fundamental tenets of the profession, and acted dishonestly. It found the dishonesty to be at the higher end of the spectrum and indicative of deep-seated attitudinal concerns.
The child who died had been readmitted to hospital after the care at issue; the charges relating to that child concerned failures to adequately check on him, start a fluid challenge, or discharge him safely. The determination records these as regulatory charges found proved or not proved on the civil standard, and they do not amount to criminal liability. The panel also noted a lack of insight, remorse and meaningful remediation, determined there was a high risk of repetition, and found Mr Hobbs’s fitness to practise currently impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The immediate consequence was the striking-off order made on 18 June 2026, at the end of a substantive hearing that had begun on 1 June 2026. Being struck off — the regulator calls this erasure — removes the practitioner from the register, so that he is no longer permitted to practise the profession in the UK. Erasure can be reviewed after a minimum of five years, but is otherwise indefinite.
The determination itself does not record press coverage or organised public campaigns; what the record fixes is the professional consequence. Within the proceedings, the panel noted that Mr Hobbs had offered an apology to Mother 1 at her child’s inquest, and had completed some relevant training, albeit on a single day and without evidence of reflection on how it would strengthen his practice. The panel determined that these mitigating factors carried little weight and did not outweigh the aggravating factors in the case.
In aggravation, the panel took into account that Mr Hobbs’s behaviour, some of which was deliberate, recklessly put children in his care at risk of harm; his abuse of a position of trust as a senior nurse and nurse in charge; a pattern of misconduct occurring over a period of 13 months; his absence of insight into the impact of his misconduct; and the vulnerability of the children receiving care, some of whom were acutely unwell.
Current Status
As of the decision date of 18 June 2026, Jay Hobbs is struck off the NMC register and may not practise as a nurse in the UK. The erasure is otherwise indefinite, with the possibility of a review after a minimum of five years. The record states no criminal conviction arising from these events; the findings stand as regulator determinations on the balance of probabilities, with three of the charges not proved.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The striking-off order ended Mr Hobbs’s ability to work as a registered nurse in the United Kingdom. The panel’s finding of a high risk of repetition, resting on the higher-end dishonesty, the deep-seated attitudinal concerns, and the absence of insight, remorse and meaningful remediation, means the route back to the register is limited to a review no sooner than five years after the decision. Beyond the register, the record is silent: the determination does not state his subsequent employment, location or personal circumstances, and nothing in it should be read as establishing more than the civil findings it contains.