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The General Pharmaceutical Council has struck a pharmacy technician off the register after she sent romantic letters to a patient who was serving a prison sentence. 

The regulator’s fitness-to-practise committee heard on Monday that Sheree Danielle Ward “exchanged letters of a personal and/or romantic nature with a patient of the pharmacy” at Five Wells Prison in the East Midlands where she worked.

Her communications with the patient took place from mid-January 2023 to around early February that year. Ms Ward, who did not attend the hearing and was not represented, admitted the allegations.

In a written statement delivered to the committee dated September 18, 2025, said she recognised “the severity” of her “transgression” and asked to be voluntarily removed from the register “permanently”.

“I have made steps to understand why this happened and how to prevent it recurring,” she wrote. “Having spent a substantial amount of my working life exclusively in pharmacy, I have decided it is not in my interest to continue in the industry.”

Ms Ward said a “feeling of alienation” from her “peers in healthcare settings” led her to find “more rapport with prisoners than other pharmacy technicians”.

Revealing she was sacked after the GPhC’s determination was published, she said: “I no longer have any desire to pursue any kind of position in or around pharmacy and I wish to put this part of my life behind me.”

The committee said her “misconduct” was not “so egregious that, looking forward, she is not fit to practise” and suggested her conduct was “remediable”.

However, it concluded her “limited insight and a lack of evidence of remediation makes taking no action or imposing a warning insufficient to protect the public”.

“The registrant’s return to practice, unrestricted, would place patients at risk of harm,” the committee said. “Furthermore, (we) considered the registrant’s fitness to practise to be impaired in the wider public interest, namely maintaining public confidence in the pharmacy profession and upholding professional standards.”

The committee added: “Although she completed level 3 safeguarding training, which would have made the registrant aware of boundaries, the allegations still occurred.”

It said its decision will not take effect until December 1, 2025, or once any appeal has been concluded.