A MOONLIGHTING nurse who claimed she was sick so she could earn hundreds of pounds working night shifts elsewhere has been struck off. Olubunmi Ajayi, 45, from Dagenham, fell asleep while working on a high dependency ward and claimed she worked at a healt

A MOONLIGHTING nurse who claimed she was sick so she could earn hundreds of pounds working night shifts elsewhere has been struck off.

Olubunmi Ajayi, 45, from Dagenham, fell asleep while working on a high dependency ward and claimed she worked at a health centre when she had left two years previously, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

She denied falling asleep on duty and two counts of dishonesty, but the panel found her guilty of misconduct and ruled her actions were so serious that confidence in the profession would be undermined if she was allowed to remain on the register.

Council chairman Paul Hindley said: "She potentially put patients at risk. She has taken no responsibility for her actions and has shown no insight indicating that she has learned, or is capable of learning lessons so as to uphold proper standards of conduct in the future."

Ajayi was employed as a bank nurse for Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust at the time of the allegations between 2005 and 2007. She worked four shifts for the trust when she should have been working for her then current employer, Craven Park Health Centre in Brent, northwest London.

She called in sick and earned up to �300 working night shifts from August 19 to November 11, 2005.

The council heard she left her job at the health centre in November 2005, but continued to work as a bank nurse, doing shifts for the trust.

She was found dozing on duty, while working at Chase Farm Hospital on August 11, 2007.

Ajayi told the trust she was working for Brent Primary Care Trust, which runs the Craven Park Health Centre, but she had not worked there for some two years. She was told she would be removed from the bank nurse list so she could no longer work for the trust or she could resign. She resigned.

Deborah Baljit, for the council, said Ajayi made a "conscious decision" to be dishonest.

The nurse, who represented herself at the London hearing, denied working as a bank nurse for Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust while on sick leave from Brent PCT, falling asleep while on duty and informing the trust her substantive employer was Brent PCT at Craven Park Health Centre when she had left. She also denied her fitness to practice as a nurse was impaired.