Paramedic Natalie Twomey’s lie about sick sister exposed by Facebook photos
A paramedic was fired after a professional tribunal found he faked a family illness to get a day off, a deception revealed by his sister’s social media posts.
Natalie Twomey emailed London Ambulance Service (LAS) bosses claiming her sister’s health was “deteriorating again” and she needed to go to Norfolk.
But LAS staff discovered photos on his sister’s Facebook account of her house decorated for Christmas, posted the same day.
A panel considered this was “inconsistent” because her sister was so ill that Ms Twomey had to visit her.
In the written decision of the Health and Care Professions Tribunal, it was stated that Ms Twomey “lied” to “mislead” her employer and described this as “deception” for “personal gain”.
The panel was told Ms Twomey emailed her bosses on November 28, 2022, saying: “I had to phone in while I was ill, my sister was ill again and I had to go back to Norfolk to be with her.”
The panel heard the LAS discovered a post on Ms Twomey’s sister’s Facebook account on November 28 containing pictures of a house decorated for Christmas.
When the paramedic was asked about his posts at the talent meeting in April 2023, he said that his sister was in ITU (intensive therapy unit) and that his sister’s husband was responsible for the posts made on his wife’s Facebook account.
The panel found that Ms Twomey knew her sister was not ill on 28 November and that she “deliberately provided misleading information to her employer to excuse her absence from work”.
“The message conveyed by the photographs of Christmas decorations was inconsistent with the fact that the registrant’s sister had become ill and the registrant had to travel to Norfolk to be with her rather than fulfill his responsibilities at work,” he said.
The paramedic was sacked from frontline duty in June 2023 for going to work smelling of alcohol.
But it was heard that when he renewed his registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) regulator, he did not inform them that restrictions were being placed on his profession.
Ms Twomey also emailed LAS’s recruitment department to discuss the secondment and claimed her back and knee injuries were the reason she was on non-patient facing duties.
The paramedic also gave false information about working hours in 2023.
Ms Twomey was dismissed from the LAS at the end of 2023 due to her “inability to attend work regularly”.
The panel heard he later claimed during a job interview that he had never been subject to disciplinary proceedings and had never been dismissed.
He also said that although he was aware there was an ongoing HCPC investigation into his fitness to work, there were no outstanding investigations against him.
In April 2024, a police officer serving as a paramedic at a police investigation center smelled alcohol on his breath and was asked to take a breath test.
The paramedic had driven to the scene and was arrested and cautioned.
Ms Twomey was convicted of the driving offense at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court in April 2024 after pleading guilty to driving a motor vehicle over the prescribed limit.
The board found Ms Twomey’s conduct was “serious enough to constitute misconduct” and removed her name from the register.
“The Panel concluded that the appropriate and proportionate sanction in this case was an Enforcement Order,” they said.
