A MIDWIFE handed thousands of pounds of hospital funds she was not entitled to when she left a failing maternity unit is to face an official disciplinary hearing.
Jeanette Parkinson, a former maternity risk manager at Furness General Hospital, has been called to attend a fitness to practise hearing by the Nursing and Midwifery Council over a four-week period from June 12.
The allegations against Miss Parkinson, who had been a midwife for 34 years, are yet to be confirmed by the NMC - the organisation that decides whether nurses and midwives are safe to practise in the UK.
However, experts could choose to strike her off the register if they conclude she did not properly fulfill her role as a registered senior midwife at Barrow's scandal-hit maternity unit prior to 2012.
After leaving her job "by mutual agreement" five years ago, Miss Parkinson found herself at the centre of a scandal last year when hospital bosses discovered she had been provided with an "irregular" exit deal that did not meet normal NHS governance procedures.
The document, unearthed during an internal investigation into the death of baby Joshua Titcombe by the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, revealed Miss Parkinson had been "significantly overpaid" as well as pocketing 480 hours in "unchallenged" overtime.
The compromise agreement also promised there would be no internal review of her alleged poor performance while she worked on the ward.
The hearing, which will be held at the NMC headquarters in London, is the last of a group of disciplinaries held to establish the conduct of members of Barrow's self-proclaimed band of "musketeer midwives" who were said to have pursued natural childbirth "at any cost" and were hostile to outside criticism.
In 2015, the group were criticised by the government-backed Morecambe Bay Investigation Report by Dr Bill Kirkup.
It found standards of care and medical practice on the maternity unit at FGH were low, leading to the avoidable deaths of one mother and 11 babies over a nine-year period.
Miss Parkinson was also said to have have provided model answers to colleagues ahead of an inquest into the death of Joshua - a move heavily criticised by a coroner.
Once Miss Parkinson's disciplinary is complete, a formal review of the way the NMC has handled inquiries into the actions of midwives involved in failings at FGH between 2004 and 2013 will be launched by the Professional Standards Authority - the organisation that oversees UK regulators.
The NMC announced last year it would carry out the review itself but the PSA later assumed responsibility for conducting the process.
PSA chief executive Harry Cayton has pledged to make the conclusions public at the end of the process.
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