Nurse at home hid records to cover up error
Medical tribunal heard she also hid a patient’s records
AVALLEY care home nurse has been suspended after forging a colleague’s signature and hiding a patient’s records to cover up her mistakes.
Janet Kenyon, who worked at Turfcote Care and Nursing Home in Haslingden, as well as Church View Nursing Home in Accrington, and Hope House Care Home in Clayton-le-Moors, admitted to 13 charges related to acts of misconduct between 2017 and 2019.
A tribunal carried out by the Nursing and Midwifery Council found while working as a care home manager at Church View, Miss Kenyon had, on several occasions, failed to record important details for her patients to ensure they were getting the right nutrition.
The panel heard how staff at the home, under Miss Kenyon’s watch, were not instructed how to use the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool ‘MUST’.
Basic details such as patient’s height and weight were also found to be inaccurate.
Amid the charges, Miss Kenyon admitted to failing to provide residents with safe care and treatment.
On top of this, the tribunal heard how, when employed by Turfcote Care and Nursing Home, Miss Kenyon had failed to administer morphine on one occasion and on another had forged a colleague’s signature when giving a morphine dose to a patient.
Under the care home’s policy two people must be present when particular drugs are administered.
However, in this case, Miss Kenyon had given the morphine and then lied about another member of staff acting as the ‘second checker’ by forging their signature.
Tribunal documents read: “On 31 August 2018 Ms 5, the nurse on duty during the nightshift, contacted Ms 4 as she thought there was a fraudulent signature in the controlled drug book. Ms 4 investigated the matter and noted your entry in the controlled drug book at 10:10 on 31 August 2018.
“Ms 4 noted that the second checker recorded was a HCA who only worked night shifts (Colleague 1), and therefore would not have been on shift at 10:10 to second check this medication. Colleague 1, who was recorded as the second checker, confirmed the signature purporting to be alongside the relevant entry was not his, and that he would have left Turfcote at 08:00, and therefore he could not have witnessed the administration of medication.”
The panel said that the action was ‘dishonest’ and only served to benefit Miss Kenyon, not the patient.
Miss Kenyon was then employed by Hope House Care Home in 2018. Just before her dismissal, it was found she had given too much insulin to a patient.
The patient, named ‘resident 4’ in the documents, was an unstable diabetic who needed close monitoring. On this occasion, the tribunal heard, Miss Kenyon gave six units of insulin instead of the correct dose of four.
A a result, resident 4’s blood sugar level dropped, although she did not complain of any symptoms.
The tribunal found that after making the error, Miss Kenyon hid the patient’s blood sugar charts in an attempt to cover up her mistake.
Mitigation by Miss Kenyon’s representative Ms Stock explained how her client has good communication with patients and their families and in the two years since the last incident has been working successfully in another care home.
She asked the panel not to strike her client off the register. She told the panel that Miss Kenyon’s current employer has given a good review of her performance saying: “She said that since she has been working with you, you have worked hard, followed instructions and been successful in your assessments and competencies for medicines administration.”
Miss Kenyon also commented on the misconduct adding: “I can now see there were a number of factors that came to a head. I was not really coping at Church View but did not fully appreciated that.
“I recognise now the huge mistakes I made and the impact that could have had on the vulnerable residents whose care and wellbeing I was responsible for.
“I am so sorry that the resident’s needs could have been missed as a result of my not managing the home well.
“At Turfcote (sic) as outlined, I was stressed and anxious and had no confidence. I felt the staff were not supportive of me and I can now see that they probably had reason not to have confidence in me.”
The NMC tribunal panel concluded that Miss Kenyon had shown ‘dishonesty’ and a ‘lack of integrity’, adding: “The panel has considered this case very carefully and has decided to impose a suspension order for a period of four months.
“The panel considered that four months would give you sufficient opportunity to continue reflecting on your misconduct and to develop further insight into the dishonesty and lack of integrity, and to demonstrate evidence of this to a future reviewing panel.
“The panel also considered that a period of four months would appropriately mark the severity of the misconduct in this case, whilst upholding confidence in the nursing profession and in the NMC as a regulator.”