Tracy Anne Penny

Introduction

Tracy Anne Penny is a former registered midwife whose name was removed from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register on 16 July 2026, when the NMC’s Fitness to Practise Committee imposed a striking-off order after finding her fitness to practise impaired. At a substantive hearing that began on 2 February 2026 and ended on 16 July 2026, the committee found that she “failed to demonstrate the standards of knowledge, skill and judgement required to practise without supervision as a band 5 midwife”, and that she had completed blood glucose documentation for a newborn monitoring check she never carried out, which it found dishonest. The panel concluded that her conduct was “fundamentally incompatible with continued registration” and erased her from the register.

Background Information

Penny was a band 5 midwife registered with the NMC under PIN 19I2270E, and the charges against her referenced her work while subject to a supported practice plan — one charged failure was “administering inappropriate medication while under a supported practice plan” The panel later found that her clinical deficiencies had persisted “despite extensive support, supervision, action plans and educational input” from her employer, and noted in mitigation that she had engaged “with some aspects of the Trust’s support and performance-management processes.”

The case reached the NMC’s Fitness to Practise Committee at a substantive hearing sitting from 2 February to 16 July 2026. Penny did not attend the hearing; the panel listed her “failure to attend the hearing and engage fully with the proceedings” as an aggravating factor, while still considering the personal mitigation she set out in written responses, including private personal circumstances that were not published, her explanations about pressures within the clinical environment, and the fact she was “relatively newly qualified during part of the relevant period”

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated (regulatory). An NMC Fitness to Practise Committee, applying the civil standard of proof, found that Penny’s conduct amounted to lack of competence and misconduct — including a finding that she dishonestly recorded newborn care she had not provided — which is a regulatory determination, not a criminal conviction.

The charged conduct stretched across “specified dates in 2021 and 2023,” with the most precisely dated incidents falling on a shift “between 26 and 27 June 2022” The competency charges alleged failures spanning “cardiotocography interpretation, escalation, medication safety and record keeping”: preparing an incorrect dose of medication and an injection with an incorrect size needle, failing to follow the ‘fresh eyes’ protocol for hourly observations, administering medication without relevant medical safety checks, failing to interpret and escalate deteriorating or suspicious cardiotocography (CTG), altering observation stickers, using incorrect CTG stickers, breaking the sterile field, failing to recognise that an episiotomy was required, failing to identify and react when a baby was born floppy with no respiratory effort, failing to triple clamp an umbilical cord, and failing to assess risk or escalate severely high blood pressure and an inability to pass urine. A separate set of charges concerned that June 2022 shift, in respect of Patient A and Patient AA, covering adequate checks, a safe sleeping conversation, a risk assessment, feeding records and a feeding chart, and blood glucose monitoring.

The most serious finding centred on newborn Patient AA: the panel found she “completed blood glucose observation documentation in respect of monitoring she had not undertaken”, and that this was dishonest because “she knew the record she had created was inaccurate and intended to mislead others that she had undertaken blood glucose monitoring.” On findings, the panel proved the majority of the charges, ruling charges 1b)i), 1b)iii), 1e)i), 1e)ii), 1f), 1g)i) and 1g)ii) not proved. It characterised the facts proved under charge 1 as lack of competence — “numerous, repeated and wide-ranging deficiencies across fundamental areas of midwifery practice” — and the facts proved under charges 2, 3 and 4 as misconduct, including the deliberate creation of an inaccurate clinical record for a check never performed.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The determination became a matter of public record: it was published by the NMC and republished in full by MedicWatch, an independent record of UK regulatory decisions, on 23 July 2026. In its impairment stage, the panel found all four limbs of the Grant test engaged, concluded her fitness to practise was currently impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds, and found her insight limited and remediation unevidenced.

The panel’s aggravating factors were extensive: “Abuse of the position of trust held as a registered midwife”; repeated failings “occurring over a prolonged period rather than as isolated incidents”; “reckless conduct which placed patients at risk of harm”; dishonesty “with the potential to mislead colleagues and compromise continuity of care”; and “the vulnerability of Patient AA, who was a newborn baby” It weighed the mitigation she offered — her private personal circumstances, her account of workplace pressures, her relative seniority in years — at only “limited weight.”

Current Status

As of the decision date of 16 July 2026, Penny is struck off — the regulator terms this “erasure” — and is no longer permitted to practise as a midwife in the UK. The striking-off order was accompanied by an interim suspension order of 18 months “to cover the appeal period” meaning she remains suspended in the interim even if she appeals. Erasure from the NMC register “can be reviewed after a minimum of five years, but is otherwise indefinite.”

Impact on Their Career/Life

The striking-off order ended Penny’s registered midwifery career in the United Kingdom. Because the panel found her conduct “fundamentally incompatible with continued registration” removal from the register was indefinite subject only to a distant possibility of review, and the 18-month interim suspension ensures she cannot resume practice in the gap before any appeal concludes. The dishonesty finding — creating a false record of newborn monitoring — carries particular weight in nursing regulation, and here it converted sustained competence failures into a misconduct finding the panel treated as dispositive. Her case now stands in the public record of NMC erasures, where the panel’s stated reasons — persistent deficiencies despite extensive support, limited insight, and unevidenced remediation — document why it concluded that nothing short of removal was sufficient.