Pauline Lino
Introduction
Pauline Lino is an adult nurse who was registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and worked agency shifts, including night cover at care homes. In April 2026 a panel of the NMC’s Fitness to Practise Committee found that she had attended a night shift at Asprey Court Care Home on 26 March 2024 while unfit to carry out her duties safely because she was under the influence of alcohol, ruled the conduct misconduct, and suspended her from practice for six months. The case is a reminder that the fitness-to-practise regime applies to agency nurses exactly as it does to permanently employed staff: a single shift, worked in the wrong condition, was enough to put a nurse off the active register.
Background Information
Lino’s registered specialty was adult nursing, and she worked as an agency nurse — booked into shifts at facilities needing short-term cover rather than employed directly by them. Her agency work included shifts at Asprey Court Care Home. Agency nurses remain fully accountable to the NMC, with the same professional standards and the same fitness-to-practise process as any directly employed colleague. Beyond her registration, her specialty and the March 2024 shift, Lino’s career is barely on the public record; the account below rests almost entirely on the regulator’s published determination and MedicWatch’s independent record of it.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Suspended after attending a night shift under the influence of alcohol. The NMC’s Fitness to Practise Committee found that Pauline Lino attended a night shift at a care home on 26 March 2024 when she was unfit to carry out her duties safely because she was under the influence of alcohol. The finding is a regulatory adjudication made on the balance of probabilities — not a criminal conviction.
The charge alleged that, on 26 March 2024, Lino attended work when unfit to carry out her duties safely due to being under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. The shift in question was a night shift at Asprey Court Care Home, which she attended as an agency nurse. The panel found the charge proved.
The panel went on to conclude, on the balance of probabilities, that Lino was under the influence of alcohol to such an extent that she was unfit to carry out her duties safely, and that this conduct amounted to misconduct. It found her insight insufficiently developed and identified a risk of repetition, and it determined that her fitness to practise was impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds.
The substantive hearing ran from 27 to 30 April 2026, with the decision dated 30 April 2026. The panel imposed a six-month suspension order with a review before it expires, alongside an 18-month interim suspension order covering any appeal period. In aggravation, it cited Lino’s limited insight and conduct which recklessly put patients in her care at an unwarranted risk of harm.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The public record contains no press coverage of the case; the attention it did receive came through the NMC’s publication of the determination and MedicWatch’s reproduction of it, which added Lino to its catalogue of suspended practitioners on 11 July 2026. Her suspension appears among the nurse suspensions listed in MedicWatch’s running record of sanctions. The consequences were direct: a nurse found to have arrived for a care-home night shift under the influence loses her place in the active workforce for the life of the order, and the panel’s aggravating finding — that her conduct recklessly put patients in her care at an unwarranted risk of harm — will frame how any future review reads her record. Night-shift residents in a care home are among the most dependent patients in the system, which is precisely the context the panel weighed.
Current Status
Lino is suspended from practice following the 30 April 2026 decision. The suspension runs for six months with a review before it expires, and an 18-month interim suspension order is in place to cover any appeal period. MedicWatch cautions that for a fixed-term suspension the start date, appeal provisions and any later review all affect whether the sanction is currently in force, and it directs readers to the official register for live status; its own practitioner page nonetheless recorded Lino as suspended at its last register check, verified against the NMC register on 14 July 2026. What happens next depends on the review hearing, where the panel will assess whether her insight has developed and whether the identified risk of repetition has been addressed.
Impact on Their Career/Life
For the duration of the order Lino cannot work as a nurse in the UK, agency bookings included, and a proved charge of attending work under the influence now sits permanently on her professional record. Because the panel found her insight insufficiently developed and identified a risk of repetition, a return to the register is not a formality — the review will decide whether she has done the work of addressing those findings, and until then her nursing career is on hold.