Nurse struck off for list of blunders at Rutland Care Village in Oakham in 2016
A nurse offered to make a cup of tea instead of raising the alarm when a vulnerable care home resident began to lose consciousness.
Tsvetanka Miteva, who was working at Rutland Care Village in Oakham at the time, has now been struck off after a list of blunders came to light.
She was the subject of a fitness to practice hearing by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the outcome of which has just been published.
The Bulgarian national was already on a 12-month suspension, during which she had been told to improve her English and take action to “remedy her deficiencies”.
The NMC panel’s decision means she is banned from working as a nurse, having “failed to demonstrate the standards of knowledge, skill and judgment required”.
It emerged during the hearing that Mrs Miteva had made a series of errors while working in the care complex between May 20 and June 17, 2016.
She failed to carry out tasks expected of a ‘Band 5’ nurse, such as taking blood sugar readings, and failed to dispose of used gloves in the clinical waste.
Among other issues, she also failed to act on one patient’s “exceptionally low” blood pressure, put medication in the wrong patient’s cupboard, and attempted to put a new dressing over a dirty one.
On May 20 that year Mrs Miteva “offered Patient D tea when she was losing consciousness”, the NMC report states.
And then on May 24 she again “offered a colleague who had collapsed tea when colleagues were trying to put them in the recovery position”.
On June 7 she failed to assess another patient for injury following a fall, did not conduct any observations, and then attempted to get the patient up from the floor without using a hoist.
It was also said that she did “not have the necessary knowledge of English to practise safely and effectively”, and made no attempt to improve her language skills.
The panel’s report states: “In the absence of any evidence of remediation there is a real risk of repetition and, as a consequence of significant harm to patients.”
It was decided that only a striking off order would adequately protect the public.
“The panel were satisfied that any resulting hardship to Mrs Miteva was outweighed by the need to protect the public and uphold the public interest, and accordingly that such a sanction was proportionate,” the report concludes.
A spokesman for Prime Life, which runs Rutland Care Village, said: “We are aware of the hearing and the subsequent outcome. We are pleased that our internal policies, procedures and processes highlighted the need to take action in this particular situation and we support the NMC’s decision in this case.”