A nurse has been struck off after placing a “feed me” sign on the chest of an elderly patient who was unable to move or communicate.
Glen Martin Davidson wrote the words in black marker pen during a night shift at Lynebank Hospital, Dunfermline. An upset colleague who had nursed the stroke patient for two years ripped the A4 sheet from the bed and tore it up.
The incident occurred on April Fool’s Day but Mr Davidson, 39, denied it was a joke and insisted the notice was an instruction to fellow nurses after the patient, who was being fed by tube, had nodded to say she was hungry.
After a hearing in Edinburgh, Mr Davidson was banned from practising as a nurse for five years by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
A council panel concluded the senior staff nurse’s fitness to practice was impaired by his misconduct. It said his behaviour towards the patient was a “serious betrayal” of trust and indicated a serious attitude problem.
It told him: “Given that Patient A was incapacitated, unable to communicate and entirely dependent on those responsible for her care, it was your duty to treat her with dignity and compassion.
“Your behaviour was not driven by a desire to care for her.
“The panel has heard evidence from your colleagues that they found your actions deplorable. The panel determines that the public would take a similar view and it is in no doubt that you have brought the profession into disrepute and breached fundamental tenets of the profession.”
While it heard several positive references from former colleagues attesting to Mr Davidson’s “high level of clinical competence and good character”, the panel concluded it was necessary to strike him off to protect the public.
At the earlier hearing in April when an interim suspension order was imposed on Mr Davidson, the nurse who destroyed the note claimed it had been taped to the bed sheets at chest height in the early hours of April 1 2010. She also said the patient was unable to communicate, even by signals.
The charge that he acted inappropriately towards Patient A by placing a piece of paper on her bed covers with words to the effect of “feed me” was proved along with seven further charges.
They included asking a nursing assistant to sign a record of his hours in someone else’s name and submitting work when he failed to complete the required number of clinical practice hours during a course at Abertay University.
Mr Davidson also falsely claimed during a subsequent investigation he had submitted a letter to the university in relation to the hours.
Mr Davidson was contacted by The Courier through his lawyer but failed to respond.