A conman who scammed £130,000 by selling bogus funeral plans and pretended to be a nurse during the COVID pandemic has been banned from working in Scotland’s care industry.
Barry Fisher was jailed for 33 months last year after admitting peddling fake funeral care packages from branches of Stevenson Funeral Directors in Fife between 2016 and 2019.
Fisher was then brought back to the dock and convicted for falsely representing himself as a qualified nurse in January 2021. He was admonished for the deception when sentenced at the end of 2022.
Fisher was convicted while registered as a care home support worker in Glasgow with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC).
The SSSC claimed he failed to immediately notify the care watchdog when charged with fraud.
After being made subject to a temporary suspension order, he then failed to immediately notify his employer at the time – where he was working as a healthcare assistant within a hospital setting.
In a written ruling published this week, the SSSC found Fisher’s fitness to practice impaired and criticised his behaviour.
The watchdog said: “You have been convicted of portraying yourself as a registered nurse and convicted of fraud.
“Such convictions represent an abuse of the trust and confidence placed in you, and represent the most serious of departures from the codes of practice.
“These behaviours amount to impairment that is fundamentally incompatible with professional registration.
“The behaviour that amounted to you being convicted of fraud caused members of the public significant financial and emotional harm.”
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Although “no harm” had come to service users during Fisher’s care work, the SSSC highlighted its concerns if his behaviour was to be repeated.
The SSSC said: “Repetition of similar behaviours, in any sort of setting, would put service users and the wider public at an increased risk of harm.”
In conclusion, the watchdog said a removal order was the “most appropriate sanction” to maintain the “continuing trust and confidence in the social service profession and the SSSC as the regulator of the profession”.
The removal order came into effect on Wednesday.
