A newly-elected Conservative MP has been accused of misleading the public by telling voters he was a full-time mental health nurse.

Ian Levy, who has taken the Blyth Valley seat from Labour in a shock general election win, is in fact a healthcare assistant at Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

"Yes, I think he has misled if he’s said that he’s a mental health nurse" Judith Ellis

In the run up to the poll, Mr Levy repeatedly claimed on his public Facebook page to have worked for 30 years as an NHS mental health nurse and that this experience had given him "a good understanding of the problems involving the local community".

Investigations by Nursing Times have found that Mr Levy has since edited some of the posts in which he claimed to be a nurse.

In one post dated 9 November, Mr Levy wrote: “As an NHS nurse myself, I am immensely proud of the investment by our Conservative Government."

This was edited 10 days later to read: “As an NHS mental health nursing assistant myself, I am immensely proud of the investment by our Conservative Government.”

Mr Levy received 17,440 votes in his constituency, beating the Labour candidate by more than 700 votes in one of the most shocking results of the 2019 general election.

Blyth Valley has been a Labour stronghold since it was created in 1950.

Journalist Esther Beadle exposed Mr Levy’s false claims over Twitter, demonstrating she had repeatedly reached out to him for clarification, but he maintained he had “worked at Nicholas’s hospital in Gosforth as a mental health nurse”.

Mr Levy does not appear on the Nursing and Midwifery Council register and a spokeswoman for Mr Levy’s trust said: “We can confirm that Mr Ian Levy is employed as a healthcare assistant.”

Only the term “registered nurse” is a protected title and therefore Mr Levy's actions technically do not violate the Nurses Registration Act 1919.

While midwife and paramedic are both protected titles, the word "nurse" alone is not.

Judith Ellis, chair of the Tropical Health and Education Trust and former interim chair at the NMC, is campaigning for this to change and has recently written a blog on the topic.

She spoke to Nursing Times about how Mr Levy's actions affect the nursing profession.

“If he says he’s a nurse, there’s little we can do about it. Because nurse is just a noun for caring, anybody can call themselves a nurse, it’s not protected," Ms Ellis said.

“But the inference to the public is that he is a registered nurse.”

Ms Ellis noted that in the US, nurses were routinely referred to as "RNs" in order to make this distinction.

She added: “Yes, I think he has misled if he’s said that he’s a mental health nurse, but it’s not protected so the NMC can do nothing. That’s the game he’s played.

“He’s changed it now to a healthcare assistant in mental health, so he’s obviously aware.

“This is my concern, that it happens all the time. It’s difficult, because you don’t say ‘somebody midwived someone’ but you do say ‘nursed.’ It’s a tricky one.

"But by not [protecting the term] we undermine the profession. It’s not fair and it deceives the public.”

Mr Levy and the Conservative Party have been approached for comment.

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