An advanced nurse practitioner who falsified patient records to obtain Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs for herself over 16 months has been struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

Sarah Jayne Didymus issued prescriptions in the names of five patients, then ended the courses on their records so the medicines would not appear as active treatment, an NMC panel found. It described her conduct as 'devious, sustained, calculated and planned'.

The panel said the pattern was 'not consistent with isolated error or poor record-keeping' but showed 'a deliberate course of conduct'.

How the Ozempic Scheme Worked

Didymus worked at Port View Surgery in Saltash, Cornwall, from 2021 until she resigned in 2023. As an advanced nurse practitioner and prescriber, she ran clinics and triaged patients. The NMC found that she used five patients' records to issue prescriptions for medicines she wanted for herself.

The panel heard that between early 2022 and spring 2023 she used the names of five patients to obtain GLP‑1 medicines, including Ozempic and Trulicity. These drugs are licensed for type 2 diabetes but widely sought for weight loss. Rather than sending prescriptions electronically, she printed them on paper and then cancelled the courses in the patients' digital notes.

In January 2022 she restarted Trulicity for a patient who had stopped taking it in 2018 after an adverse reaction. The panel found there was 'no clinical basis' for doing so.

The following month, after a telephone consultation in which Ozempic was not discussed, she entered a 12‑month course of the drug for the same patient. She printed the prescription and ended the course about 20 minutes later, citing an 'error'.

In June 2022 she issued another 12‑month Ozempic prescription for that patient without any consultation, the panel found. She printed it, ended the course with the note 'didn't use' and collected the medication from a pharmacy herself. The practice's lead pharmacist later put the cost of the dispensed items at £822 (about €960).

The pattern continued in 2023. In January she added a four‑week course of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, to a second patient's record without a consultation and collected it herself. Later that month she printed a further weight‑loss prescription for the same patient and closed the entry with the note 'wrong PT'.

A third patient was recorded in February, and in March she added a 28‑day Ozempic course to a fourth patient's record with no clinical justification. In April she issued a four‑month Ozempic prescription for a fifth patient, printed it and cancelled it.

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How the Ozempic Prescriptions Came To Light

The matter came to light in April 2023, when a Boots pharmacy called the practice manager to query an unusually large amount of Ozempic prescribed to one patient. A review of Didymus's prescribing history against patient records then revealed the pattern described to the NMC.

Staff had also noted that Didymus had lost a significant amount of weight in the months before the pharmacy alert, according to the panel's findings.

NMC Decision To Strike off Over Ozempic Misuse

The panel ruled that Didymus held a 'position of enhanced trust' as a senior practitioner and abused it by deliberately selecting patients, creating and printing prescriptions for medication she wanted, then cancelling them to conceal the activity. It said her conduct fell seriously below the standards expected of a registered nurse.

The regulator said a finding that did not reflect the seriousness of the dishonesty identified would undermine public confidence in nursing. It ordered her removal from the register, which bars her from practising as a nurse in the UK.

A Port View Surgery spokesperson said it launched a full investigation as soon as the matter came to light and notified the relevant authorities. 'The employee was suspended and then resigned under suspension,' the statement said. It added that the issue 'occurred some time ago and no patients came to harm'.

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