A nurse has been sanctioned following the treatment of a patient at a Wishaw care home.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) opted to serve a three-month suspension order on Courtney Timlin with an interim suspension order for a further 18 months.
Ms Timlin, who admitted charges of dishonesty and amending notes, was employed as a registered nurse by Kirknowe Care Home in Wishaw.
The unit Ms Timlin worked in was a specialised dementia unit and was responsible for up to 28 patients on any given shift.
Whilst working as the sole nurse on duty at the home on the dementia unit, Ms Timlin was responsible for Resident A’s care.
That patient had an irregular sleeping pattern, staying up until 4am and not usually waking up until lunch time.
Due to concerns from family members, a care plan was implemented which would ensure that Resident A was up in the morning to receive food and treatment.
At 1.45pm on March 12, 2019, Resident A’s son came to visit him and found him still in bed and incontinent of urine.
Following on from this, Resident A’s daughter called the Home to express her concerns.
Ms Timlin answered the phone, and informed the daughter that Resident A had been assisted out of bed, had been dressed and had breakfast that morning before returning to bed as he was tired.
Ms Timlin, following the phone call, documented this in the nursing notes.
On the following day, the Home Manager spoke to number of staff on duty and none recalled seeing Resident A out of bed until approximately 1.45pm.
The Home Manager spoke to Ms Timlin at 8.15am on March 15, where Ms Timlin told her that another member of staff had woken Resident A up, got him dressed and had taken him to the lounge at about 9am for an hour.
Ms Timlin’s statement was subsequently found to be inaccurate as the member of staff named in her statement told the Home Manager that they did not do this.
Ms Timlin amended an entry that she had previously made in Resident A’s notes, changing the time he was taken to the lounge from 8.30am to 9.30am. This amendment was not signed or dated, as is the protocol for amendments.
In a third meeting on March 15, Ms Timlin admitted to her manager that Resident A had not been up and dressed and that she tried to cover it up.
In the coming days, Ms Timlin said that she panicked when receiving the call from Resident A’s
daughter and told her that Resident A had been assisted out of bed in order to “smooth things over”, and to provide reassurance as Resident A’s daughter was worried about her father.
The NMC panel was of the view that Ms Timlin’s actions did fall significantly short of the standards expected of a registered nurse.
The panel noted that Ms Timlin told them that she was “inexperienced and immature” at the time of the incident, and that she has matured since then.
The panel further noted that Ms Timlin has not worked since March 2019, and has therefore not been able to demonstrate how she would handle the same situation differently in the future.
The report adds: “The panel noted that Ms Timlin has repeatedly apologised to colleagues for her misconduct and said she wanted to apologise to Resident A’s family, but did not have the chance to do so.
The panel was of the view that this shows that Ms Timlin has remorse for her actions.”
A spokesperson for the home said: “We take our responsibility to provide high quality, kind care to all our residents seriously, and we always support taking action to protect older people in care.
"We therefore welcome the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s decision.
“When concerns were first raised about this individual, we removed them from the service, worked to understand what had taken place, and then formally failed their employment probation.
"As such, this individual is no longer employed by our organisation.
“We followed all necessary procedures and worked closely with the residents’ family and the relevant authorities throughout this process.
“We will always take action against any colleague that falls short of the values and standards we expect and residents deserve.”
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