BEVAN: NURSE’S MISTAKES LEFT SURGERY PATIENT ‘AT RISK OF HARM’

A nurse did not spot a patient’s catheter or wound drain and recorded another person’s observations as her own, a hearing was told today (Tues).

Julia Bevan, 50, made the blunders while working on the post-operative ward at BUPA’s Spire South Bank Hospital in Worcester.

Her failure to set up the apparatus properly left the woman, who was recovering from surgery, ‘compromised’ and ‘at risk of harm’, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

Bevan faces being kicked out of the nursing profession today after charges relating to the patient, referred to only as Patient C, were found proved at a misconduct hearing.

Further charges relating to the care of two other patients at the same hospital were dismissed.

The panel must now decide whether the failings amount to misconduct. If they do, Bevan could be struck off the nursing register.

Patient C had been released from the hospital’s operating theatre on January 24, 2008, and her care handed over to Bevan, the hearing was told.

But she failed to notice a catheter and wound drain and did not set them up while the patient was on the ward.

She also recorded urine output readings taken by operating theatre staff as her own on an observation chart.

‘This registrant admits she fell short of the standards required on her own evidence,’ said Elizabeth Wheeler, for the NMC.

‘She accepted that the catheter remaining hidden could stop urine coming out.

‘Patient C was put at risk of harm and this registrant left the patient compromised.

‘Her note-keeping could also potentially have caused patient harm.

‘Other professionals frequently rely on nothing but the notes and they have implications as to the steps they may or may not take in the future for the patient.’

But Neil Sheldon, for Bevan, said her failings did not amount to misconduct and that she had lost her job and home as a result of the errors.

‘She has learnt a lesson as a result of failing to spot this patient’s catheter and wound drain,’ he said.

‘She has been suspended, she has lost her job, she has lost her livelihood and she has lost her home.

‘We are dealing with a clinical error in respect of a single patient on a single occasion.

‘Nurses, like everybody else, are allowed to make mistakes.

‘The NMC have utterly failed to make out a case that this was improper or wrong, still less that this amounts to misconduct.’

He said Bevan had been under stress and had felt victimised by bosses after lodging a bullying complaint against her manager.

‘She felt they were waiting for her to make a mistake so they could sack her,’ he added.

Bevan admits she failed to notice Patient C’s catheter and wound drain and recording urine observations she had not taken, but denies her fitness to practice is impaired.

She was cleared of charges she made medication errors in respect of a second patient and that she recorded observations she had not taken for a third patient.

She was further cleared of failing to make entries in Patient C’s medication record and failing to take half-hourly observations.

mfl