Married NHS therapist who asked patient ‘wanna bang?’ avoids being struck off
An NHS therapist ‘crossed professional boundaries’ by pestering a vulnerable patient for sex and trying to motivate him by offering to send nude images of her.
Alicia Hing sent the messages to a ‘vulnerable’ man who had suffered life-changing spinal injuries while she was working at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire.
She sent him pictures of her in gym wear and told him she wouldn’t send him naked pictures unless he ‘displayed enthusiasm’.
She was handed a 12-month caution by the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) for breaching ‘fundamental tenets of the profession’.
Hing was appointed as the man’s occupational therapist after he was admitted to the hospital’s spinal injury centre in 2018.
That December, she sent him a friend request on Facebook and then a message containing her phone number.
In WhatsApp messages sent during a four week period, the part-time burlesque dancer sent images of herself in her gym clothes and a flurry of flirty texts.
During one exchange, Hing told her patient he would not get naked pictures of her unless he displayed enthusiasm.
The patient replied: ‘I’m confused’ and was told by Hing: ‘It’s ok. Just having a moral and ethical dilemma.’
He responded: ‘Well I’ll make it a bit easier and say hold off on them for now.’
In January 2019, Hing sent messages discussing the dating app, Tinder, before then asking: ‘Wanna bang?’.
The patient replied ‘No’ in Russian, before asking: ‘Where would we even do it?’
Hing responded: ‘Don’t know. Don’t care. Just need something. Anything.’
Patient A replied: ‘I’m sure you’re really wanting it but I’m not the person. I can’t jump into sex like I used to.’
Four hours later, Hing messaged the patient: ‘By the way, I meant anything just like… I miss cuddles and having my hand held. Just miss that human contact.’
Hing, who was employed by Buckingham Healthcare NHS Trust, moved to the hospital’s intensive care unit in January 2019.
While working in intensive care she discussed her work with Patient A.
In a vile text message to him she called a bilateral amputee she was working with ‘revolting’ and a ‘human blob’.
She wrote: ‘I saw a morbidly obese bilateral amputee with a grade 4 sacral sore… plus various other sores in his fat folds.
‘He was literally like a human blob…I felt really bad but OMG. It took four of us to roll him, and he was just…revolting.. He had stumps for knees..’
In September 2019, during an appointment with the outpatient service at the hospital, Patient A disclosed to a psychologist that he had been sent unwanted messages which included sexual content.
He handed over WhatsApp messages in which Hing had told him: ‘I feel like such a bad human being, because I should definitely not fancy my patients.
‘Genuinely feel bad cause I know you clearly just have a flirty personality! I shouldn’t think anything of it, but I do kinda fancy you.
Another message read: ‘Make it sound like I’m doing something seedy. Like texting a patient who is in bed a few yards from me. Especially one I’d definitely want to flirt with if I wasn’t their therapist.’
Hing, who got married in June this year, was suspended from the hospital in November 2019 and resigned before disciplinary proceedings finished.
She sent a text to her former patient in July 2020 in which she said he had ‘completely and utterly destroyed not only my career, but my life too’.
Hing denied that her messages were in search of finding sexual gratification but instead to seek ‘validation’.
She said in her evidence to the HCPTS panel: ‘I just wanted someone to tell me that I deserved those things. I wasn’t trying to obtain them from anybody.
‘This case was of misplaced friendship, support and friendly, reciprocated “banter”, the same way I would communicate with any of my friends.
‘However, reading back I can entirely see how this can be misinterpreted, and why Patient A may have felt that my actions, comments and conversation were sexually motivated, and I can only extend my most sincere apologies for this.
‘Patient A was vulnerable, and I took advantage of that for my own personal gain (to seek comfort and support in a time of poor mental health).
‘Something that I now see was incredibly misplaced and I am deeply regretful for. I hope that despite this, Patient A’s rehabilitation journey was successful, and there was not a negative impact on him and that he continues to live a happy, healthy and prosperous life in the wake of his spinal cord injury.’
Hing said she was ‘quite disgusted’ at her comment calling an amputee ‘revolting’ and a ‘human blog’.
She said: ‘[Patient A] was asking about ITU, it was my early days of ITU, I had seen some quite distressing things.
‘That was sort of my way of coping with dealing with that new environment. It was completely unprofessional, not something I had ever done before, you know, or would ever do again, and actually reading that back, I’m quite disgusted at what I said because that’s not what I meant.
‘I wouldn’t mean that about somebody. I’m actually quite horrified that I said that, but as I said, I was in a difficult place. It was my way of coping.’
The HCPTS panel found Hing had committed misconduct and brought the profession into disrepute. It ruled that some of the messages sent by Hing were sexually motivated acts ‘towards a vulnerable patient who had suffered life-changing injuries’.
She was spared a more severe sanction – including being struck off – after expressing ‘deep remorse’.
The tribunal concluded: ‘[Hing] engaged in sexually motivated conduct towards Patient A (albeit not in pursuit of a sexual relationship) on several days over a period of nearly 4 weeks. He was a vulnerable patient in her care.
‘She also shared personal information of a distressing nature that left Patient A feeling anxious, burdened and concerned.
‘[Hing] subsequently contacted Patient A and blamed him for having made an entirely proper complaint about the Registrant’s conduct.
‘By engaging in this behaviour, [Hing] breached fundamental tenets of the profession and has brought the profession into disrepute.’
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