A NURSE from Runcorn who defrauded two hospitals out of a combined £30,000 has now been suspended from the profession.

At a previous court hearing where Sarah Oakes was spared jail, it was heard how she falsified sick notes while working at Whiston Hospital and spent some of this time visiting Cuba.

The 44-year-old also gave a false reference to gain a job at Warrington Hospital, allowing her to earn wages she would not be entitled to had the truth been known.

But she was allowed to walk free with a suspended sentence after the court heard of the ‘calamitous’ impact her incarceration would have on her four children.

Now, the Nursing and Midwifery Council has suspended Oakes for 12 months, preventing her from working in healthcare across Cheshire or Merseyside for this duration.

The decision of her suspension was made at a meeting last month.

Back in May, Liverpool Crown Court heard how the first fraud offence occurred between February 17, 2019, and August 28 of the same year.

During this period, while working at Whiston Hospital, she told her employer, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, that she was too sick to work.

The court heard how Oakes initially started working at Whiston Hospital in October 2015, before resigning on August 28, 2019, after months of sick leave from February.

She had been submitting sick notes issued by a Dr Blake complaining of ‘chronic hip pain’ and claiming that surgery was required to her foot.

During this period of ‘sickness’, her manager maintained contact with her and a number of welfare appointments were arranged, but Oakes failed to attend.

The court heard while claiming to be sick, she made two trips to Cuba that were ‘documented on her Facebook page’.

All of the sick notes were fraudulent, with Dr Blake being non-existent. The court heard it is unknown how she came to be in possession of the sick notes or put them together.

The second fraud offence took place while working at Warrington Hospital between August 12, 2019, and May 6, 2021, by providing a false reference to her new employer – Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

On January 31, 2019, the defendant, while still employed at Whiston Hospital, attended a nursing open day at Warrington Hospital.

She was interviewed that same day for a staff nurse position and a conditional offer was made to employ her, pending checks on her application form, including two references.

It took a while for the application to be processed, the court heard, and one of the references was for a senior nurse at the St Helens hospital trust, with a requirement being for a reference from a current employer.

However, the email address was not the email address of the nurse listed, and the reference was not genuine.

Due to the delay, Oakes was employed on August 12, 2019, while still working employed at Whiston.

She worked a number of days before going off sick for periods, and her employment continued until May 2021, when she was dismissed.

Before then, due to claims of her suffering from fibromyalgia, she did not work long days and had no set work patterns, the court heard.

Ms Holt informed the court that Oakes is of ‘previous good character’ with no previous convictions.