A nurse has been stood down after giving an aged care resident in northern Tasmania the coronavirus vaccine without their consent.
The resident at Meercroft Care in Devonport was on Tuesday mistakenly inoculated and is being closely monitored for possible side effects.
"An Aspen Health officer mistakenly gave a Meercroft resident a vaccine without the proper consent form," CEO Wendy Shearer said in a statement.
"Meercroft takes issues of informed consent extremely seriously and is devastated that this mistake has occurred.
"We immediately contacted the relevant family and reported and apologised for the incident."
Aspen Medical said the highly experienced staff member has been stood down pending an investigation.
"The aged care facility presented and prepared a resident, whose legal guardian had not provided consent, to be vaccinated against COVID-19," a spokesman said.
"It was understood by the aged care facility that consent had been provided and they communicated this to our nurse immuniser.
"An additional consent check, as required by our own internal procedures, was not performed by our nurse immuniser at the facility."
Aspen Medical has apologised unreservedly to the resident and their family for any hurt and upset caused by the error.
"We are adding additional procedures to minimise this event occurring in the future," the spokesman said.
Meercroft is investigating how the incident occurred and if any additional checks should be put in place to ensure it does not happen again, Ms Shearer said.
Federal Minister for Aged Care Services Richard Colbeck has been contacted for comment.
More than 9000 Tasmanians have so far been given the coronavirus vaccine as part of the state and federal government rollout.
