The Commission confirmed a disciplinary finding of misconduct against an Assistant in Nursing who was found to have smacked a dementia patient with a television remote control, holding that the decision-maker's reliance on a single eyewitness account (the public interest discloser) was sufficient to substantiate the allegation on the balance of probabilities where the discloser's account was contemporaneous, consistently repeated, and substantially corroborated by the appellant's own admissions regarding the sequence of events. The Commission held that deficiencies in the underlying investigation (failure to interview the patient, failure to obtain a statement from another nurse, absence of CCTV) did not render the disciplinary process procedurally unfair where the show cause process itself complied with the Discipline Directive and the appellant had sufficient information and opportunity to respond. The Commission also confirmed that the substantiated conduct of smacking a vulnerable dementia patient constituted misconduct within the meaning of s 91(1)(b) and s 91(5)(a) of the Public Sector Act 2022.
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