Nurse rapped over use of force on six-stone woman

A NURSE who yanked a six-stone dementia patient by the wrist because she wouldn’t go to bed has been sanctioned by health watchdogs.

An inquiry was told Lorna McGougan used, “excessive force” on two OAPs during night shifts at Spring Hill Nursing Home in Kilmarnock.

Ms McGougan had 19 years experience as a nurse but told an inquiry she had completed an “online module” in dementia care at the time of the incidents in April 2016.

She is said to have told a colleague, “the soft approach did not work” with one elderly woman, who would often sleep in the lounge.

Witnesses reported seeing her, “pulling Patient B by her wrist from the armchair against her will.” The elderly woman is said to have been left “distressed and screaming,” after the incident.

In another incident, the nurse was seen pulling another agitated woman out of a chair by her arms.

Two charges were found proved against Ms McGou- gan at a hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which said residents had been placed under a potential risk of physical and mental harm by her actions.

Ms McGougan was given a nine-month conditions of practice order which places certain requirements on her in order to keep her registration.

The inquiry was told she has been working in a similar care home for the past two years, “without repetition” and had undergone more training in dementia care.

Professor June Andrews, a former nurse and expert in dementia care said: ““Most residents in care homes have dementia. Sometimes, when it is hard to find staff, they need to use agency.

“Even an experienced agency nurse may not have had much dementia education. Some people assume care home care is simpler than hospital or community.

“They could not be more wrong, as this case proves.”