A prison nurse has been struck off after regulators ruled her role in a plot to smuggle a mobile phone into jail for a drugs operation was “fundamentally incompatible” with remaining on the professional register.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) removed Kymberley Finn, 33, following misconduct proceedings triggered by her criminal conviction. The panel concluded her actions had “brought the profession into disrepute” and that maintaining public confidence required her removal.
Finn was working at HMP Durham on an agency contract when she became involved in what police later described as a “complex organised drug conspiracy”. The scheme unravelled in August 2022 when officers searching a cell at HMP Northumberland discovered a phone containing messages about drugs, alongside other contraband.
She was one of eight people sentenced in January 2025 over the wider plot to smuggle drugs into both HMP Northumberland and HMP Durham. Finn was not charged with drug offences but admitted conspiracy to convey prohibited articles into prison. She received a nine-month jail term, suspended for 18 months, along with rehabilitation requirements.
In its January 2026 ruling, the NMC panel stated Finn had been “a significant participant in a conspiracy involving several other people to introduce a banned item to a prison” and had knowingly abused her position of trust. “Members of the public would be appalled if a registered nurse were not found impaired in circumstances where the nurse had abused their position of trust in this way,” the decision stated.
The panel acknowledged mitigating factors including Finn’s early guilty plea, her previously good character, and that no patient had been harmed. However, it concluded that the seriousness of her behaviour was “at a high level” and that anything short of striking her off would be “disproportionate to the gravity of the offence” and “insufficient to address public interest concerns”.
Finn, from Boldon Colliery, has now been barred from working as a registered nurse, midwife or nursing associate.
