Hearing: Abdullah Khan, 37, denied ignoring her cries for help and failing to notice she had been seriously injured
A 97-year-old woman was left crying out in agony after she broke her neck at a BUPA care home and was given just two paracetamol tablets, a hearing was told.
The pensioner was left in her bed for nearly two hours before an ambulance was called.
Abdullah Khan, 37, denied ignoring her cries for help and failing to notice she had been seriously injured. The hearing also heard how he did not call an ambulance to avoid ‘whingeing’ paramedics.
But giving evidence he told the Nursing and Midwifery Council he did not call an ambulance because he could not be ‘100 per cent sure’ what was wrong with her.
After a ten minute assessment, he gave the woman two painkillers following the 6am fall and did not bother to check on her again before his shift ended at 7.30am, it was alleged.
The woman fell in her room at the BUPA-run Old Gates Nursing Home in Feniscowles, Blackburn, Lancashire, on March 20 last year.
Senior carer Wendy Aspen took over from Mr Khan at 7.30am, and an ambulance was called shortly afterwards when the woman's condition was discovered.
Lucinda Bernett, chairing the NMC hearing, said: 'Mr Khan stated he did not want to call an ambulance if he was not 100 per cent certain as to the need, since the ambulance staff would be ‘whingeing and upset’ if they were called unnecessarily.
‘As a registered nurse and the senior member of staff on duty at the time, it was Mr Khan’s responsibility to call an ambulance.
‘He did not do so.
That omission is, in the panel’s judgement, a culpable failure.’
Khan was today found guilty of five failures in the care of patient A before she was eventually taken to hospital.
His evidence was criticised as inconsistent, at times contradicting his notes made at the time of the incident and some of his own testimony to the hearing.
‘According to Mr Khan, patient A was mobilising her arms and legs but could not say whether she was in pain’, said Ms Bernett.
‘He recorded that patient A was complaining of ‘pain in neck’.
‘This directly contradicts his oral evidence that she was not able to say whether she was in pain.’
Care assistant Zulekha Namaji had told the panel resident A was ‘screaming in pain’ and holding her neck, but Mr Khan had dismissed her concerns saying: ‘She doesn’t need to go, there’s nothing broken.’
‘She hadn’t any injuries, no bleeding or swelling, and she was just sat on the commode not saying anything to me’, Mr Khan said.
‘I couldn’t be sure if she was OK or not, but she was saying she wanted to get up and go to bed. At the time I saw her she was not crying and I did not see her in pain.
‘If there was any pain, there is no problem to send to hospital, but at the time I saw her she was not crying.’
Khan gave patient A two paracetamol tablets, but was found guilty of failing to document this properly.
He was further found guilty of failing to complete paperwork following the fall, and claimed he had asked care assistants to do it for him.
‘Mr Khan had an independent duty, in accordance with his responsibility as a registered nurse, to record assessments made, treatments administered and medicines given and could not delegate those responsibilities to a third party.’
The panel also decided Khan had failed to give an adequate handover at the end of his shift, further delaying the calling of an ambulance for patient A.
Khan must now argue his fitness to practice as a nurse is not currently impaired as a result of this incident.
If the panel decide it is, he could face being struck off the nursing register
No comments:
Post a Comment