A NURSE who lied on an application form to land a top hospital job faces being struck off.

Sonya Davenport, 37, gave a friend's name as a referee, falsely claiming she was her superior.

Using the fake reference, she clinched the job as manager of a gynaecological ward at Royal Oldham Hospital and worked there for 15 months during which time she earned £51,000.
Bosses at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages the hospital, would not have appointed her had they known the truth, a court was told.

Davenport is now likely to be struck off the nursing register by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which is investigating.

She pleaded guilty to `obtaining a pecuniary advantage' at an earlier hearing and was sentenced at Bolton Crown Court to complete a 12-month community order, which includes 160 hours of unpaid community work, and was ordered to pay court costs of £500.

A judge said a `moment of madness' had `shattered' a promising career for Davenport, of Fold Green, Chadderton, Oldham.

Valid

One of the two referees she used was valid - and she only needed one to apply for the position, the court was told.

Mr Recorder Main QC said: "The NHS could not survive if people who are applying for jobs misrepresented themselves. We must have confidence in people who apply for jobs in public bodies."

Davenport, the court heard, left school at 16 with minimal qualifications, but eventually graduated with a BSc in Nursing from Salford University and became a registered nurse.

She worked as a nursing sister at Bupa, then as health-care manager at Forest Bank Prison.

She left the jail `amicably' with the promise of a reference, then worked as a nurse on a gynaecological ward at the Royal Oldham.

Davenport was encouraged to apply when a full-time ward manager post was advertised.

Her first named referee on the application form was a former boss, but the second, Janet Hill, was a friend, although she wrote that Ms Hill was her former manager at the jail.

She was interviewed by a panel who all knew her and got the job, working from August 2005 to November 2006. She was sacked after an internal investigation revealed the lie.

The court heard Davenport has no intention of returning to nursing and is teaching healthcare at college via an agency.

The judge told Davenport: "You are a young woman with great potential. I do not doubt for one moment that the Trust in Oldham secured for themselves a very capable person.

"But in securing that position, in a moment of madness for reasons that I cannot understand, you used a referee that was fictitious."

He said she had `thoroughly earned' the money she was paid and added: "This is not a case where fraud has led to real loss. What it has led to is a loss of confidence in the system."

A trust spokesman said `processes had changed so the situation could not arise again'.

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