Sarah Jayne Didymus, an advanced nurse practitioner who worked at Port View Surgery in Saltash, Cornwall from 2021 until her resignation in 2023, was struck off the nursing register after fabricating patient records over a 16-month period to obtain discounted weight-loss drugs.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council characterized her behavior as devious, sustained, calculated, and planned, stating that she misused her position to acquire the medications. She printed physical prescriptions instead of sending them electronically to hide her activities, while also experiencing significant weight loss in the months leading up to the investigation.
Her role allowed her to prescribe medications for patients, triage in clinics, and review minor ailments. Suspicion arose in April 2023 when a practice manager received a phone call from Boots pharmacy regarding a large quantity of Ozempic prescribed to a patient.
The panel discovered she prescribed Ozempic and Trulicity, which is a GLP-1 used for type 2 diabetes, across five patients. She printed the paper prescriptions and terminated the course on patient files to prevent detection.
In January 2022, she restarted a Trulicity course for a patient without clinical grounds before closing the medical record entry. That patient had previously received the drug in 2018 but stopped due to an adverse reaction. The following month, she prescribed a 12-month Ozempic course to the same patient following a phone consultation, despite the medication not being discussed and lacking any clinical indication. She printed the prescription and closed the record 20 minutes later citing an error.
By June 2022, she issued another 12-month Ozempic prescription for that same patient without a consultation, printing the paper order, closing the course citing did not use, and collecting the drugs herself at a pharmacy. An email between Mrs Didymus and the lead pharmacist showed the dispensed items cost £822.
In January 2023, she accessed another patient file without a consultation, prescribed a four-week course of semaglutide, and collected it herself. Later that month for the same patient, she printed another weight-loss drug prescription before closing the record as wrong PT. She repeated this with a third patient the following month, and in March 2023 added a 28-day Ozempic course to a fourth patient record without clinical justification. By April 2023, she issued a four-month Ozempic prescription to a fifth patient, printed it, and canceled it on their record.
The panel noted this showed a deliberate course of conduct rather than an isolated mistake. They found she misused her prescribing authority in a manner wholly inconsistent with professional standards, occupying a position of enhanced trust as a senior nurse with an additional registered prescribing qualification. The panel concluded public confidence would be harmed if such dishonesty did not result in impairment, leading to her being struck off the register.
Port View Surgery stated they launched an investigation, assisted authorities, suspended the employee who then resigned under suspension, and confirmed no patients suffered harm.
