Sarah Belinda Pike

Introduction

Sarah Belinda Pike is a registered nurse who was struck off the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register in June 2026 after a Fitness to Practise Committee panel found that she had failed to maintain professional boundaries with a vulnerable resident of the nursing home where she worked. The panel found she gave the resident her personal mobile number, visited his home outside working hours and shared alcohol with him there, and that she had also referred to a colleague in derogatory terms within the resident’s earshot and worked without a face covering during the Covid-19 pandemic. It concluded that the concerns about her were attitudinal, that she had shown limited insight and no remediation, and that her fitness to practise is currently impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds.

Background Information

Pike was registered with the NMC under pin number 05F2443E and worked as a registered nurse at Barton Place Nursing Home in Exeter, where the charges against her arose. Her case was heard by an NMC panel at a substantive hearing that ran from 8 June 2026 to 12 June 2026, with the decision dated 12 June 2026. The conduct examined at the hearing dated from 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the panel expressly took the pressures of that period into account as it weighed what sanction to impose. She did not attend the hearing, and the panel later listed her failure to attend, or to engage in the Fitness to Practise process without good reason, among the aggravating features of the case.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. The findings below are those of an NMC Fitness to Practise Committee panel, made on the civil standard (the balance of probabilities) and attributed throughout to that panel; they are regulatory findings, not criminal convictions, and no criminal proceedings are reported in the determination. Charges 1c, 2b and 4 were expressly found not proved, and the NMC offered no evidence on charge 3b.

The most serious proved charges concerned Resident A, a resident of Barton Place Nursing Home. The panel found proved that Pike failed to maintain professional boundaries with Resident A by giving him her personal mobile number, and that on 26 December 2020 she attended his home outside working hours and shared alcohol with him there. An allegation that she attended his home again on 28 December 2020 was found not proved.

The panel also found proved two further charges. Pike communicated unprofessionally by referring to a colleague as ‘a bitch’ or words to that effect in earshot of Resident A — an allegation of being abrupt to colleagues alongside it was not proved. She also failed to follow the Home’s Covid-19 policy by not wearing a face covering while working shifts; a related allegation that she shared food with a resident was dropped when the NMC offered no evidence on it. A fourth charge, that she incorrectly administered a second Furosemide tablet to Resident A, was found not proved.

In reaching these findings the panel relied on witness and documentary evidence together with Miss Pike’s own written responses. It decided the proved facts amounted to misconduct, breaching the standards of the NMC Code on maintaining professional boundaries, treating colleagues with respect, and infection control.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel determined that Pike’s fitness to practise is currently impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds. It found the concerns were attitudinal, that she had shown limited insight into her misconduct and undertaken no remediation, and that there was a risk of repetition.

At the sanction stage the panel weighed mitigating features against aggravating ones. In mitigation it took into account her reported poor health at the time, a challenging working environment at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an apology made by Miss Pike in her email correspondence to Mr Deverenne. Against that it set deliberate breaches of the Code; a pattern of misconduct over a period of time, particularly in respect of her breach of professional boundaries with Resident A; failure to attend hearings, or to engage in the Fitness to Practise process, without good reason; limited insight into her misconduct; the vulnerability of the person receiving care, particularly Resident A; and failure to work collaboratively with colleagues.

Current Status

On 12 June 2026 the panel imposed a striking-off order, erasing Pike from the NMC register — the sanction the regulator calls erasure and which removes a practitioner’s permission to practise the profession in the UK. Erasure can be reviewed after a minimum of five years, but is otherwise indefinite. The published determination stands as the record of the panel’s findings, its impairment and sanction decisions, and the reasons for them; no appeal outcome is reported in it.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The striking-off order ends Pike’s registered nursing career unless she successfully seeks restoration after the minimum review period of five years. The panel’s characterisation of her conduct as attitudinal, its finding of a pattern of misconduct in her dealings with Resident A, and its conclusion that there was a risk of repetition are the terms in which her case is now permanently recorded against her name and registration number. Her non-engagement with the process — she neither attended the hearing nor participated beyond her written responses — meant the panel reached its decision on the evidence before it, and the aggravating finding that she failed to engage in the Fitness to Practise process without good reason now forms part of the permanent record alongside the proved charges.

Sources

• MedicWatch, “Sarah Belinda Pike — Struck off the register · 12 June 2026,” 12 June 2026.source