Nurse struck off for altering patient’s notes after death
Posted 15 March 2024 - 13:34
NMC fitness to practise hearing finds mental health nurse Helen Powell tried to mislead the Coroner’s Court and claimed a colleague made the false entries
A nurse who altered a patient’s clinical notes after they died has been struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
A fitness to practise (FtP) hearing this month heard that in April 2019 registered mental health nurse Helen Powell retrospectively changed the patient’s notes following their death, including noting an appointment had been offered when it had not, and amending other dates. When confronted about the inconsistencies in the notes, she suggested that a colleague had inserted the wrong dates, the panel heard.
Ms Powell admitted the charges presented at the hearing on 4 March, which also included failing to complete the patient’s clinical notes in a timely and accurate manner in the year leading up to their death.
Patient’s notes were ‘disjointed, not flowing’
Ms Powell had been the named nurse in the care of the patient, referred to as ‘Patient A’, from March 2018 until his death in March 2019, while working at the Substance Misuse Service at the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) in Wales.
Following Patient’s A death, Ms Powell was asked to make a witness statement to the Coroner’s Court, outlining all the input from the service using clinical notes and diary entries.
Her line manager raised concerns about the accuracy of the report and whether it had been altered retrospectively as it was ‘disjointed, not flowing, and the dates jumped from year to year’.
Employer concluded that records were falsified
Ms Powell was interviewed in December 2019 as part of BCUHB’s disciplinary process, during which she said: ‘I know that I did wrong, I wasn’t thinking rationally and I was stressed out.’
She claimed she had remembered the details of a particular appointment while filling out her witness statement and had added it in. However, the board concluded that no such appointment ever existed and that Ms Powell had altered two other dates ‘to allow a suggestion of clinical activity that did not occur on these dates and that this was done in order to falsify a required Coroner’s report’.
Ms Powell was referred to the NMC in September 2020.
She was dismissed from her post for gross misconduct following a BCUHB disciplinary hearing in June and August 2020, and has not worked as a nurse since June 2021.
Nurse’s record-keeping under review since 2015
The FtP panel also heard that Ms Powell had been on an informal action plan regarding her record-keeping from June 2015, but did not always adhere to the plan and her clinical notes were not always accurate.
The panel concluded that Ms Powell’s actions were serious and ‘highlighted a deep-seated attitudinal issue’. She was given a striking-off order with an 18-month interim suspension order to allow for appeal. If she does not appeal within 28 days of the hearing, the striking-off order will take effect.
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