Matthew Raikes

Introduction

Matthew Raikes is a paramedic who was suspended from the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) register for twelve months in August 2026 after a Conduct and Competence Committee panel found his fitness to practise impaired by misconduct spanning late 2022 to mid-2023. The panel found that Raikes took morphine ampoules without clinical justification, inaccurately recorded administrations of intravenous morphine in a controlled drug record book, altered two individual patients’ clinical records to show morphine administrations that never happened, and on up to 24 occasions failed to keep accurate controlled-drug records — incomplete entries, missing incident numbers, missing years, unwitnessed entries and wrong running balances. He did not attend the final hearing, which proceeded in his absence, and an interim suspension now covers the appeal window.

Background Information

The particulars alleged that on one or more occasions between 1 January and 31 July 2023, as set out in a schedule, Raikes took one or more morphine ampoules without clinical justification, and that this conduct was dishonest. Between the same months he inaccurately recorded administrations of intravenous morphine in a controlled drug record book. On or about 23 July 2023 he altered Patient C’s clinical record to indicate he had administered intravenous morphine when he had not; on or about 26 July 2023 he did the same to Patient B’s record. The dishonesty particulars alleged he knew the records he made were inaccurate and intended to conceal his taking of the ampoules. A further particular covered up to 24 occasions between around October 2022 and April 2023 on which he failed to keep accurate records of the controlled drugs in his possession in his personal drugs book.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Suspended for drug-record falsification. The particulars were found proved on the civil standard, including the dishonesty findings. The published decision records no criminal proceedings.

Controlled-drug regimes in ambulance practice exist precisely because morphine is both a patient medication and a diversion risk; the paramedic’s personal drugs book is the audit trail. The panel’s findings describe the audit trail’s systematic collapse: entries left incomplete, incident numbers and years unrecorded, signatures not witnessed or not accurately recorded as unwitnessed, running balances recorded for the ambulance station rather than the paramedic’s own stock, and no record of where morphine had been signed out from — on up to 24 occasions. On top of that sit the two altered patient records of July 2023, each manufactured to show an administration that had not occurred, found dishonest as concealment of the missing ampoules. The hearing itself proceeded without him: the HCPC asked the panel to continue in his absence, and the panel, taking account of the relevant procedural rules and the service of notice, concluded it was fair to do so.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Having determined to conclude the case by imposing a one-year suspension order, the panel heard an application from the HCPC’s representative for an interim suspension order of eighteen months to cover any appeal period, since the substantive order cannot take effect until the appeal window closes. The panel concluded the interim order was appropriate and proportionate and set it at eighteen months for exactly that reason: if an appeal is lodged, the public would otherwise be unprotected for its duration. The result is a layered restriction — a twelve-month suspension waiting to bite, and an eighteen-month interim suspension already covering the gap. The published decision records his absence from the hearing and the absence of any representation, leaving the sanction untested by any mitigation beyond what the documents themselves provided.

Current Status

Raikes is suspended from the register for twelve months from the date the substantive order comes into effect, with the eighteen-month interim suspension operating in the meantime. He cannot practise as a paramedic while either order operates. The decision leaves a sustained finding of dishonesty in the handling of controlled drugs on the public register — the category of misconduct that ambulance trusts treat as a dismissal matter in its own right. Any review of the order will consider whether he has engaged with the regulatory process; the record of this hearing gives a reviewing panel nothing on engagement, insight or remediation to weigh.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case is the controlled-drugs variant of the dishonesty spectrum: no patient was directly harmed in the record, but the falsification targeted the ledger that protects patients from diversion, which is why the panel folded record-tampering and drug-taking into one impairment finding rather than treating them as bookkeeping lapses. The two altered patient records are the sharpest facts — clinical entries written to be read by colleagues and auditors as evidence of treatment that never happened. For the ambulance sector, the decision documents the full cycle: discovery through the drugs book, a regulatory case built from the employer’s records, and a suspension that ends his front-line registration for at least a year. His absence from the process, mirrored in the absence of any remediation evidence, leaves him outside the register with the exit conditions undefined.

Sources

• HCPTS, “Matthew Raikes — Final Hearing, Conduct and Competence Committee, Suspended,” August 2026. source