A social worker from Rhondda Cynon Taf has had the conditions placed on her registration extended following a Social Care Wales fitness to practise review hearing.
Rachel Halliday had conditions placed on her registration for 18 months in July 2019 after a fitness to practise panel found she’d failed to carry out or record visits to vulnerable children.
Ms Halliday also failed to hold, record or minute a care and support meeting, kept files at her home for prolonged periods of time, communicated with the father of a child in her care after she was suspended from her role and deleted messages from her phone.
A review hearing on 9 November 2020 found that Ms Halliday had not met the conditions placed on her registration and her fitness to practise was still impaired.
Ms Halliday’s case was heard again last week, and the panel found that she had still not met all the conditions placed on her registration and her fitness to practise was still impaired.
The panel concluded that while Ms Halliday had met some of the conditions, such as completing a number of agreed training courses, she hadn’t yet met them all, in part because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The panel therefore decided to amend the conditions and extend the length of time Ms Halliday has to meet them by another 18 months.
Explaining its decision, the panel told Ms Halliday: “We share the concerns of the previous panel that you have not had the opportunity to demonstrate your fitness to practise through working under supervision with the benefit of the training you have received. You have not returned to work during the period since July 2019 and have not now been in regulated employment since 2017.
“We find that the misconduct to which you admitted was serious and there is insufficient evidence of steps to prevent its repetition. We consider that your fitness to practise remains untested and the risks arising from your misconduct have not diminished. We therefore find that your fitness to practise is currently impaired.”
The panel continued: “We have decided that it is necessary for the protection of the public and in the public interest for the Conditional Registration Order to be extended with amended conditions.”
Ms Halliday was present at the one-day review hearing that took place over Zoom last week.