Nursing and Midwifery Council determination — substantive hearing
NMC strikes off children's nurse Jay Hobbs over dishonesty and care failings
A Nursing and Midwifery Council panel has struck children's nurse Jay Hobbs from the register after finding his fitness to practise impaired by misconduct, including six proven charges of dishonesty, in his care of four children in an emergency department.
MedicWatch editorial · Published 18 June 2026 · Updated 7 July 2026
Erasure (struck off the register)
Added to MedicWatch: 7 July 2026Report a correction
What does “struck off the register” mean?
Being struck off (the regulator calls this "erasure") removes the practitioner from the register. They are no longer permitted to practise this profession in the UK. Erasure can be reviewed after a minimum of five years, but is otherwise indefinite.
Concerning Jay Hobbs, nurse (Nursing and Midwifery Council 11F0456E).
Decision date: 18 June 2026 · Hearing started 1 June 2026 and ended 18 June 2026
In plain English
The NMC's Fitness to Practise Committee found that children's nurse Jay Hobbs's fitness to practise was impaired by reason of misconduct, including six charges of dishonesty, in the care of four children in an emergency department between 2022 and 2023. The panel found he had put vulnerable patients at unwarranted risk of harm and dishonestly recorded and reported clinical observations. Finding a high risk of repetition, it made a striking-off order.
Charges
The charges concerned Mr Hobbs's care of four children in a paediatric emergency department between March 2022 and April 2023. They included failing to give appropriate discharge advice; failing to escalate a child with a raised Children's Early Warning Tool score, start the sepsis pathway or review the score; failing to consult a doctor, provide discharge advice or make a safeguarding referral for another child; and failing to adequately check, start a fluid challenge for, or safely discharge a child who was later readmitted and died. Several charges alleged dishonesty, including incorrectly recording that a mother wished to take her child home, and incorrectly telling a mother, and recording, that a child's heart rate had dropped below 140bpm when it had not, intending to mislead.
Findings
The panel found the majority of the charges proved, including six charges of dishonesty, and three charges not proved. It found that Mr Hobbs's conduct breached the NMC Code across multiple areas and amounted to serious misconduct. Applying the Grant test, the panel concluded that he had put patients at unwarranted risk of harm, brought the profession into disrepute, breached fundamental tenets of the profession, and acted dishonestly. It found the dishonesty to be at the higher end of the spectrum and indicative of deep-seated attitudinal concerns. Noting a lack of insight, remorse and meaningful remediation, the panel determined there was a high risk of repetition and found Mr Hobbs's fitness to practise currently impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds.
Mitigating and aggravating factors
Mitigating factors
The panel noted that Mr Hobbs had offered an apology to Mother 1 at her child's inquest and had completed some relevant training, albeit on a single day and without evidence of reflection on how it would strengthen his practice. The panel determined that these mitigating factors carried little weight and did not outweigh the aggravating factors in the case.
Aggravating factors
The panel took into account the following aggravating features: Mr Hobbs's behaviour, some of which was deliberate, recklessly putting children in his care at risk of harm; abuse of a position of trust as a senior nurse and nurse in charge; a pattern of misconduct occurring over a period of 13 months; absence of insight into the impact of his misconduct; and the vulnerability of the children receiving care, some of whom were acutely unwell.
Source
All facts on this page are drawn from the publicly published Nursing and Midwifery Council determination linked below. MedicWatch does not editorialise the regulator’s findings.
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