An Angus nurse has been suspended for altering a junior colleague’s medication record to hide his own mistakes.
Iain Burns “panicked” when he altered a dose of a resident’s Prednisolone medication without permission, amended their patient chart, and dishonestly amended a colleague’s notes to hide his mistakes at Lochbank Manor Care Home in Forfar.
The former Ninewells Hospital oncology nurse was present at a two-day fitness to practise hearing before a Nursing and Midwifery Council panel in Edinburgh, where he was sanctioned for 18 months.
Burns admitted all charges and explained that he was under stress at home and in his personal life, and this affected his actions at work.
He said he was working an 8am to 8pm shift, and was the sole registered nurse in the home from 2 to 8pm, during the teatime medication round.
Noting Burns’ “remorse”, panel chairman Gerard Kennedy told him he had breached “fundamental tenets” of the profession and had “brought the profession into disrepute”.
He said: “The panel was of the view that given the seriousness of the matters admitted it was satisfied that your actions quite clearly fell well short of the conduct and standards expected of a registered nurse and that they do amount to misconduct.”
Prednisolone is a medicine used in treating inflammatory and allergic disorders, and Bell’s Palsy.
Burns did not obtain written confirmation of a doctor’s verbal instruction to alter the dose on December 10 2013, or have a witness; transcribed Resident A’s amended Prednisolone medication on or before December 28 without getting a colleague to check and countersign it, or signed it himself, and did not record a start or end date for the new dose.
He asked Colleague B on December 30 to amend her entry on Resident A’s MAR chart to indicate that she had given 3mg of Prednisolone two days earlier, when she had not; and crossed out Colleague B’s initials that related to the administration of 2mg Prednisolone to Resident A on December 28, replacing it with the word “error”.
Lochbank Manor’s provider RDS Healthcare could not be reached for comment due to holidays, but the home confirmed Mr Burns had been dismissed in February 2014, when the allegations came to light.