Reasons and Hearsay: Keizon Green v Nursing and Midwifery Council [2026] EWHC 69 (Admin)

Mr Green is a registered nurse who was working at a local hospital and a care home, as well as looking after a patient suffering from cancer in her own home. During his NMC hearing, he faced a number of criticisms, the most serious of which was that he had provided care to his patient in her home whilst under the influence of alcohol. The allegations dated from 2018 to 2021.

Some of the allegations were dismissed and some were found proven. Mr Green was found to be impaired and was suspended for 6 months, with a review. He appealed some of the factual findings as well as the sanction.

This case examined the degree of deference due to a panel’s fact finding. It reiterated the position: the courts respect professional regulators, but will intervene where decisions lack clear reasoning or evidential support.

The first finding challenged on appeal related to Mr Green’s dismissal of Health Care Assistants during a shift, for which he did not have the authority. The allegation was predicated on the evidence of a single witness, who the panel had found to be “consistent, reliable and credible”. The court rejected the suggestion the reasons were inadequate:

“The assessment of Miss Dyer’s evidence as “consistent, reliable and credible” was shortly stated, but did not stand alone and, when seen in context, was sufficient. Moreover, to require the Panel to give reasons for finding the account consistent and credible would amount to requiring the giving of reasons for reasons. The central point is that the Panel made it clear that the key question was whether Miss Dyer’s evidence had been fabricated …  The reasons enabled the Appellant to know what the Panel had seen as the central question on this charge and to know why the Panel answered that question in the way it did. Nothing more was required.”

Mr Green also challenged the Panel’s finding that he should have inform his line manager of an assessment he had written. Eyre J again dismissed the arguments advanced:

“36. The Panel expressed the reasons for the decision on charge 4(b) shortly. However, those reasons identified the crucial dispute, namely whether the Appellant should have done more to alert his line manager and others to the fact that he had written the assessment. [the finding] turned on an assessment of what was required as a matter of proper practice … The question of what proper practice required in those circumstances is a matter on which a significant degree of deference is to be accorded to the Panel’s assessment, albeit only one member of the Panel was a registered nurse.”

Essentially, whilst regulatory determinations must include reasons for the decisions reached, they do not need to be detailed, particularly where the findings of fact are predicated on a panel’s assessment and understanding of relevant proper practice.

Mr Green also attacked the decision to rely on hearsay evidence from his patient, who had died by the time the case was heard. Eyre J concluded that the Committee should have considered the circumstances in which her evidence was obtained, whether her evidence was credible, and finally whether there was corroboration from other evidence. He determined that the Committee had failed in its approach to all these matters and was most critical of the Panel’s approach to corroboration:

“Charge 7 was a serious allegation. In order to find it proved in the face of the Appellant’s denial and of his oral evidence, it was necessary for the Panel to analyse the evidence with care. It failed to do that and treated as corroboration of the allegation matters which, on a proper analysis, were not corroborative.”

Eyre J’s analysis is very similar to Brunner J’s assessment of hearsay evidence in Lee v GMC [2025] EWHC 3347 (Admin), in which she also embarked on a detailed assessment of corroborative evidence, albeit on the facts of that case, the original findings were upheld.

Given the Appellant’s success in overturning the findings on two of the allegations, the High Court concluded that the six-month suspension could not stand.