Nurse caught having intercourse at UK hospital 3 times as ‘noises went on for 5 minutes’

Mental health nurse Kate Sullivan was dismissed for gross misconduct and struck off the nursing register after an NMC panel found she had sex with a colleague on three occasions

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A mental health nurse has been removed from the register after engaging in sexual activity on three separate occasions at her place of work.

Kate Sullivan was found by a disciplinary panel to have consistently behaved unprofessionally while employed at Glanrhyd Hospital in Bridgend. Sullivan was stationed at the hospital’s Rowan ward – a secure rehabilitation unit exclusively for men, with a high intake from prison.

She had been temporarily promoted to a band seven ward manager, according to her fitness to practise hearing. Between October 2020 and summer 2021, she was involved in a relationship with a colleague which she failed to disclose to her employer, Swansea Bay University Health Board, contravening workplace policy.

She later confessed: “I engaged in a casual relationship with a fellow colleague and he was working as a band two on the ward at that time.”

The panel determined that Sullivan had sex with this individual – referred to solely as Colleague A – at their place of work on March 4, 2021, and then again on January 8 and 17 of the subsequent year, reports Wales Online.

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On the initial occasion, Sullivan was working a night shift when she led a female colleague into the hospital’s “hub shop”. The panel heard that Sullivan made it clear to her co-worker that she and Colleague A wished to be left alone.

“[The female co-worker] vacated to the adjacent room leaving Colleague A and Miss Sullivan alone… She then heard sounds consistent with sexual intercourse coming from the adjacent room,” stated panel chair Alisa Newman.

In her witness statement, the “very uncomfortable” co-worker said: “I could hear the desk was banging against the wall and I could hear them both making noises. There was no-one else around, and all of the patients were asleep, so I was certain the noise I heard came from them next door. The sex did not last very long. The noises went on for about two to five minutes.”

On the second occasion, Sullivan texted the same co-worker saying she had just engaged in sexual activity with Colleague A in the “recharge room”. On the final date, she sent a similar message: “Haha [Colleague A] just had sex with me.” The then-couple were both on a night shift at the time.

Sullivan denied the sexual activity and claimed she would “fabricate stories” to keep her co-worker interested in talking to her. But the panel found it “inherently unlikely that Miss Sullivan would have invented a story that she and Colleague A had sex in the workplace”.

Other concerns over Sullivan’s conduct included refusing to examine a patient who had a rash on their groin and breaching confidentiality by disclosing colleagues’ sickness absence reasons to other staff, the panel heard.

Sullivan manipulated her roster to work alongside Colleague A more frequently. She also showed up for a shift she hadn’t been assigned, which the panel concluded was because Colleague A was on duty that day.

There was an instance when she chose to abruptly leave the ward with Colleague A, resulting in the unit being understaffed and unsafe. She publicly criticised a colleague’s paperwork and referred to another colleague as “a lazy c***”, according to the panel’s findings.

Sullivan was found to have “knowingly breached professional boundaries” by allowing a patient into her office with the door shut and blinds down for approximately 20 minutes. This was particularly inappropriate given the patient’s “sexualised behaviour and difficulties in understanding boundaries”, stated Ms Newman.

The panel also determined she had violated workplace policy by hugging the same patient and laughing when he referred to her as “babe”.

On a separate occasion, this patient had grabbed another female staff member and grinded against her. Sullivan was reprimanded by the panel for failing to report the incident despite knowing her colleague had been treated in this manner.

Sullivan, who had served seven years with the health board, was sacked for gross misconduct. She did not attend the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) fitness to practise hearing.

Striking her off the nursing register, Ms Newman stated: “Miss Sullivan’s actions were significant departures from the standards expected of a registered nurse and are fundamentally incompatible with her remaining on the register.

“[Strike-off] is necessary to mark the importance of maintaining public confidence in the profession and to send to the public and the profession a clear message about the standard of behaviour required of a registered nurse.”