Nursing and Midwifery Council determination — substantive hearing
NMC panel issues three-year caution to nurse George Harle over MDMA supply conviction
A Nursing and Midwifery Council panel has imposed a three-year caution order on children's nurse George Thomas Harle, finding his fitness to practise impaired on public interest grounds after his conviction for supplying MDMA to a friend who died after taking the drug in 2020.
MedicWatch editorial · Published 25 June 2026 · Updated 9 July 2026
Warning (formally warned) — 3 years
Added to MedicWatch: 9 July 2026Report a correction
What does “formally warned” mean?
A formal warning is a note on the practitioner's record. It does not restrict practice but tells the public that the regulator considered the conduct to have fallen below expected standards.
Concerning George Thomas Harle, nurse (Nursing and Midwifery Council 22F1365E).
Decision date: 25 June 2026 · Hearing started 24 June 2026 and ended 25 June 2026
In plain English
The NMC's Fitness to Practise Committee found that nurse George Thomas Harle's fitness to practise is impaired on public interest grounds because of his conviction for supplying MDMA, a class A drug, to a friend who died after taking it in October 2020, before he joined the register. The panel noted his early guilty plea, genuine remorse and low risk of repetition, and imposed a caution order for three years rather than the suspension the NMC requested.
Charges
That, on 19 September 2024, he was convicted of supplying a quantity of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), a controlled drug of class A, to Person A between 3 October 2020 and 5 October 2020, contrary to section 4(3)(c) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The facts were proved by admission. The supply resulted in the death of Person A. He was sentenced on 28 July 2025 to 12 months' imprisonment suspended for 12 months, plus 150 hours of unpaid work.
Findings
The panel found the conviction charge proved by admission and determined that his fitness to practise is currently impaired on public interest grounds only. It noted the incident occurred in 2020 when he was a 20-year-old student nurse and not on the register, that he purchased the drugs for a group of friends without financial gain, pled guilty at the first opportunity, self-referred to the NMC, and demonstrated high-quality insight, remediation and genuine remorse with a low risk of repetition. The panel imposed a caution order for three years, concluding the case fell at the lower end of impaired fitness to practise and that the suspension order sought by the NMC would be disproportionate.
Mitigating and aggravating factors
Mitigating factors
No clinical concerns on his practice; practising unrestricted in a specialised role of high acuity; the length of time between the incident and the conviction without any further concerns; he was a student nurse at the time of the incident; high quality of his insight, remediation and genuine remorse; identified low risk of repetition; no harmful deep-seated attitudinal concerns; no risk to public or patients; early admission of the facts; efforts to prevent similar things happening in the future.
Aggravating factors
Death of Person A.
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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