title: When accepting a gift can be professional misconduct and theft.
abstract: Gifts are often given as tokens of gratitude by grateful patients to district nurses. However, there are circumstances where the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), as the professional regulator, and the courts, have held that accepting gifts, large or small, from vulnerable adults is dishonest and amounts to professional misconduct and even theft. Richard Griffith discusses the circumstances where a district nurse who accepts a gift can face a fitness-to-practise investigation and an allegation of theft.
authors.affiliation: Senior Lecturer in Health Law, College of Health Science, Swansea University.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Griffith
mesh_terms: D032781:Codes of Ethics; D003152:Community Health Nursing; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D037921:Gift Giving; D006801:Humans; D016134:Organizational Policy; D028743:Professional Misconduct / Q000941:ethics*; D013222:State Medicine; D013800:Theft / Q000941:ethics*; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Gift; loan; professional misconduct; theft