FOSTER: NURSE HID PATIENTS’ DRUGS IN JELLY BABIES
A nurse gave dementia patients drugs hidden in jam sandwiches and jelly babies on a ‘1970s-style’ ward, a hearing was told.
Meal times were ‘appallingly organised’ at the Victoria House Care Centre in Stockton-on-Tees and 15 out of 17 patients suffered dramatic weight loss, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.
Within a month they ‘bore no resemblance’ to pictures in their medical files, a senior investigator told the hearing.
Ward manager Janet Foster also allegedly kept a jar of jelly babies under her desk so she could ‘covertly’ administer medication without the consent of the family or GP of patients.
The home was owned by Southern Cross, one of the country’s biggest provider of residential care homes until the firm collapsed last year.
Susan Lowe, a service quality inspector at the firm, described how she was asked to lead an investigation into standards at Victoria House, including the Richard Wing that Foster ran, after concerns were raised in 2009.
She told the hearing she had qualified as a nurse in the mid-1970s before laws revolutionising mental health care were passed to improve standards.
Ms Lowe said: ‘For me, walking onto the wing was like going back to that period.
‘None of the improvements in mental health care up to 2010 had reached Richard Wing.
‘Medication had been administered covertly without the necessary processes being followed.
‘Jam sandwiches with medication in were given to patients without it being explained to patients what was happening and if they understood.
‘Ms Foster also had a jar of jelly babies under her desk she could use to covertly administer medication.’
Ms Lowe told the hearing that when she spoke to staff working on the 20-bed ward they said they were too afraid to raise concerns over a lack of training in dementia care and a lack of choice for residents.
She added: ‘I realised that everyone I spoke to on Richard Wing was being treated in a very institutionalised manner.
‘It was very clear to me that the care staff felt they were not being listened to.’
Foster denies a catalogue of charges including failing to ensure patient medication records were adequately maintained by staff and failing to prevent residents from losing weight.
She also denies failing to make adequate referrals to GPs and dieticians for residents losing too much weight and encouraging staff to carry out showering of residents only on allocated days.
Foster further denies instructing staff to administer medication to residents covertly in their meals and/or with their sweets, but admits not reporting a fight between two residents and instructing day staff to administer night medicine at the end of their shifts.
She denies the remainder of the charges against her including one alleging she instructed staff not to allow residents to attend a performance given by a singer at the home.
Foster was dismissed from the home in Bath Lane, Stockton-on-Tees in March 2010 after an inspection revealed a number of problems with her ward.
She faces being struck off from the nursing profession if the disciplinary panel finds her fitness to practise is impaired by misconduct.
The hearing continues.
