‘HAPPY’ MORE PATIENTS WERE BEING DISCHARGED

Michelle McClintock worked for the East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust at the William Harvey Hospital.

Part of her duties included rating patients’ ongoing care needs from a “high” category A to a “low” category C.

A staff nurse described how McClintock had marked a frail and elderly patient with incontinence as being in category C, when she should have been category A.

In her evidence the nurse recalled how McClintock said to her “if you put her down as category B she will be here even longer”.

The nurse said: “That lady has a right. It’s her safety and welfare and we’re supposed to be here in a caring environment, she [McClintock] just walked off.

“She still wanted to give this lady all Cs because she didn’t want her sitting on the ward for a few more days. It’s quite regular.”

The nurse said McClintock was “happy” that she had more patients being discharged than at other wards in the hospital.

McClintock was also accused of prescribing medicines and prescriptions without the authority to do so, but the disciplinary panel decided there was not enough evidence to prove it on the balance of probability.