Care home nurse free to return to work despite ‘serious misconduct’ rulings

A nurse found to have committed two counts of serious misconduct while working at a Shrewsbury care home is free to return to practice, a panel has ruled.

Julie Elizabeth Burton was handed a three-month conditions of practice order limiting what work she will be allowed to do and ensuring she is subject to supervision, if and when she returns to nursing.

Ms Burton told the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel earlier in the week that she knew her fitness to practice was currently still impaired, and that she had not worked since the allegations were raised in May 2018 as a result.

She said she would not wish to go back to a care home environment, but asked not to be struck from the register as she would like to return to a different field of the profession in future.

At the outset of the week-long remote hearing, Ms Burton admitted to one charge – that she had not carried out frequent enough checks on a resident named as ‘Patient A’.

The panel found all other charges brought by the NMC proved, including that Ms Burton had failed to escalate Patient A’s “abnormal” blood pressure, temperature, heart rate and respiration observations on by calling 999, failed admit the patient to hospital due to low fluid intake, and tried to take a blood pressure reading from the side on which the patient had a broken arm or shoulder.

It was also found that she had not notified the NMC when Barchester Healthcare, which operates the care home, began disciplinary proceedings against her following the allegations, despite being required to do so by a previous conditions of practice order imposed by the NMC in January 2018.

On Thursday the panel, chaired by Suzy Ashworth, said two of the charges – the failure to carry out frequent observations on Patient A and the failure to notify the NMC of the disciplinary proceedings – amounted to serious misconduct, and that Ms Burton’s fitness to practice was impaired as a result.

The hearing resumed on Friday morning for the panel to hand down its sanctions.

Ms Ashworth said the panel had taken into account the “aggravating feature” of the previous NMC panel finding of misconduct in the months before the incident at the Mount, as well as mitigating features including Ms Burton’s personal circumstances at the time, “contextual factors at the home”, and the insight she had demonstrated about her actions.

Ms Ashworth said the panel was satisfied that “patients will not be put in danger” if Ms Burton were to return to nursing under a conditions of practice order, adding that it was the panel’s view that a suspension or striking off order would be “disproportionate” in the circumstances.

Ms Burton thanked the panel for handing down a “fair and reasonable judgement”.

She added: “I would also like to apologise yet again to the patient’s family for all the distress and upset I have caused.

“This has been a very upsetting experience for me and an important learning curve.

“I was letting my anger and outrage with Barchester affect my insight and I was not looking at things in a logical manner.”