Debbie Povall had already admitted to failing to preserve patient safety by working excessive hours during her time at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Gobowen, near Oswestry , between June 2018 and June 2019.
She also admitted sending a text message to another colleague saying, “I had to stop myself from […] as I would rather gauge her eyeballs out and shove them down her throat.”
Ms Povall was referring to someone referred to in a fitness to practice substantive hearing as “Colleague C”.
However, she denied all the other allegations she faced.
This included telling Colleague C, “you could have apologised” when she arrived late, and being aggressive in her tone to her when the colleague tried to step in to help with an INR (international normalised ratio) machine that checks the thinness of blood.
The panel found those charges as proven, but they didn’t find that Ms Povall’s actions caused Colleague C to bring a grievance and resign.
Ms Povall – who is now a registered nurse who provides healthcare assessments for the Department for Work and Pensions – also faced several allegations relating to her leadership.
The panel concluded that she failed to ensure staffing levels were adequate, but she did not manipulate bed allocations so as to secure a high number of admissions onto the ward. It was also decided that Ms Povall’s actions did not result in premature patient discharges.
In relation to an allegation that Ms Povall failed to maintain a patient’s dignity, the panel concluded that she did not prioritise the administration of a controlled drug for one patient over assisting an incontinent patient who had soiled themselves. However, they did find that she declined to assist a colleague with a patient’s bypassed catheter and requested him to continue with observations instead.
It was also not proved that Ms Povall failed to maintain patient care by implementing rigid routines by making staff work from one end of the ward to another in the morning, leaving high-risk patients without any supervision.
Ms Povall also faced allegations that she failed to provide or escalate care appropriately.
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The panel decided that, regarding a patient who had not passed urine, she did tell a colleague “to leave the patient and she will wee” rather than request a bladder scan. Other charges that were proven were that Ms Povall said, “you need to get him (the patient) home tomorrow” or words to that effect, and her words were said knowing the patient had low haemogoblin (iron protein) levels and required a blood transfusion.
However, the panel found that other charges were not proven. This included that Mrs Povall failed to escalate care for a patient whose oxygen saturation had dropped, and she failed to isolate a patient who had not had a MRSA screening, which is carried out to check for the bacteria and prevent serious infections. It was also not proved that Mrs Povall did not record a patient’s blood results on the handover notes.
Other charges that were not proved were that Mrs Povall failed to complete necessary checks when discharging patients, which included a patient who raised concerns she had no food at home, and she failed to check the handover notes when carrying out a drugs round which led to to her administering metformin (to treate type 2 diabetes) to a patient when it was not appropriate to do so.
The panel will now decide if the charges that have been found to be proven amount to misconduct, and if so, if this means that Mrs Povall’s fitness to practice is impaired.
The hearing is due to resume on Thursday (January 8).