Nurse found guilty of misconduct (From Daily Echo)
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Southampton General nurse didn't check on critically ill teen for five hours
6:30pm Thursday 26th January 2012 in Health
Nurse found guilt of misconduct
A Southampton nurse who abandoned a critically ill teenager on her ward for five hours without checking him will not be allowed to work on her own for three years.
Despite being told that the vulnerable 19-year-old, who suffered from cerebral palsy, needed to have hourly observations, Nannette Beeby, 39, admitted to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) that she failed to do so.
The patient was being treated at Southampton General Hospital, where he had undergone surgery to correct a severe curvature of the spine and she had been told that he could only communicate by blinking.
But despite a colleague making Beeby aware of the patient’s raised pulse, she failed to check him and then she did not pass on the patient’s information to the nurse coming on shift at the handover.
Alison Willis, who worked on the same ward, said: “She was told to check him between every half an hour, to an hour, but there are not records of this taking place between 12.40pm and 5pm.”
Although Beeby admitted leaving the teenager, she denied misconduct, but the panel found her guilty of that charge and found that her failure to carry out the checks put the patient “at risk”.
However, although Beeby admitted failing to carry out the regular assessments to identify any deterioration, the panel said this charge did not amount to misconduct as the hospital had not given her “the appropriate support mechanisms and adaptations” to deal with working on the different ward, taking into account that she had been moved to another ward that was short-staffed.
A spokesman for Southampton General Hospital told the Daily Echo that they were confident that the assessment tools for staff to identify early signs of deterioration are effective.
They added: “We are continually developing these processes to ensure staff have access to as much additional support as possible to aid decision-making.” In future Beeby will have to inform the NMC where and when she is working and tell her employers about the order and she will not be allowed to work alone for three years.
