Vet struck off over false insurance claim for her horse

Vet struck off over false insurance claim for her horse

Committee brands actions as 'deplorable'

A vet has been struck off after creating an inaccurate clinical history for her own horse and dishonestly trying to claim insurance for treatment.

The Royal College Veterinary Surgeons found Nicola Burrows guilty of serious professional misconduct in respect of all 11 charges against her.

A disciplinary committee said her conduct “could be characterised as deplorable”.

Ms Burrows was found guilty of serious professional misconduct in respect of all 11 charges against her in a hearing held between 4 and 12 May.

The first charge against Cardiff-based vet Dr Burrows alleged that she had, in November 2017, “allowed or caused” her horse to be re-registered at the Cardiff equine practice where she worked under a different name, and had failed to “consolidate and cross-reference this new record with the previous one”.

‘Not truthful’

The second alleged that between November 2017 and the following March, she failed to record details of her horse’s history of nosebleeds, and investigations into this.

The third to ninth charges concerned communications with Dr Burrows’ insurer, NFU Mutual, in which she failed to disclose her horse’s full clinical history and “knowingly gave false statements to the effect that the horse’s condition had started more recently than it actually had”.

The 10th charge alleged that Dr Burrows asked a colleague to provide incorrect and/or dishonest information to the insurers in relation to an endoscopy on her horse in late 2017, and the 11th alleged that in relation to all previous charges, Dr Burrows had acted dishonestly.

Mr Bradly, representing the RCVS, said Dr Burrows was “not a truthful witness”, who “had told a number of lies to further her interests”. He reminded the committee that her actions were concealed for some months and intended to result in financial gain.

The horse was put down in October 2018.

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