Sanjay Kumar Narasimhan
Introduction
Sanjay Kumar Narasimhan is a UK nurse who was working as a ward manager at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust when a Nursing and Midwifery Council Fitness to Practise Committee found he dishonestly allocated bank shifts to a junior colleague who had never worked them, arranged the payments for himself, and behaved in an intimidating manner towards that colleague. He was suspended from the register for four months on 25 June 2026 .
Background Information
The charges concerned Colleague 1, a junior member of staff, and two episodes in early 2022. On 24 January and 1 February 2022, the panel found, Narasimhan retrospectively allocated or authorised bank shifts to the colleague knowing he had not worked them and had no knowledge of them. He then requested or received £321.47 from the colleague’s personal bank account in relation to those shifts. In a second episode, he re-instated shifts the colleague had cancelled on 25, 26 and 27 February 2022, knowing he could not work them, and asked him to transfer the payments received for them .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated (regulatory). The findings are the NMC panel’s conclusions on the civil standard.
All charges were found proved, several by admission. The panel concluded the registrant’s explanations were implausible and preferred the evidence of Colleague 1. Its characterisation of the conduct was blunt: serious misconduct involving calculated dishonesty and coercive behaviour towards a junior colleague, placed at the higher end of the spectrum. The charge sheet also carried the structural facts — that the conduct was an abuse of his position as a senior manager, that the dishonesty was motivated by financial gain, and that he behaved in an intimidating and/or threatening manner towards the colleague who was both the instrument and the source of the money .
The mechanism is worth spelling out, because it is the ward-manager version of payroll fraud: a manager with the authority to allocate bank shifts creates shifts on the system that no one worked, lets the payment land, and then moves the money to himself through the junior colleague’s account — leaving the colleague carrying shifts on his record he knew nothing about. The panel found the intimidation charge proved alongside it, meaning the junior colleague faced both the falsified shifts and the manager’s temper .
On sanction, the panel found impairment on public-interest grounds only, assessing the risk of repetition as low given significant remediation, insight and testimonials — and imposed a four-month suspension with a review, plus an 18-month interim suspension covering any appeal .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The consequence is the four-month suspension and a register record that permanently attaches a findings sentence of calculated dishonesty at the higher end of the spectrum to a former ward manager’s name. The case is recorded in MedicWatch’s listing of nurses suspended in 2026 .
No employer statement or public comment from Narasimhan appears in the fetched record beyond the determination. The Royal Free London trust’s own employment outcome is likewise absent from the public page — the register sanction is the only consequence the fetched record documents .
Current Status
Narasimhan is a suspended nurse under a four-month order imposed on 25 June 2026, with a review directed and an 18-month interim suspension covering the appeal window. The dishonesty findings — the phantom shifts, the £321.47, the coerced transfers — are permanent entries on the register record .
The panel’s low repetition-risk assessment rests on remediation it found significant; the review is where that assessment meets testing .
Impact on Their Career/Life
Bank shifts are the flexible labour market of the NHS ward, and their allocation is one of the quiet powers of a ward manager — which is exactly why the panel placed the case at the higher end despite the modest sums. The fraud was small in amount and large in structure: it required authority over the rota, a junior colleague compliant enough to move the money, and enough intimidation to keep him there. The panel’s public-interest-only impairment finding and four-month sanction reflect the remediation it accepted; the higher-end characterisation of the dishonesty is the part of the record no future employer search will miss .