A DEPUTY ward manager who abused staff from an East Lancashire health trust on Twitter and on a personal blog has been struck off.

Norman MacKenzie was being investigated for not reporting an absconder and other patient breaches while working at Rochdale’s Scott House, was run by Whalley-based Calderstones Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

During the investigation, he hurled expletives and death threats at colleagues and the Nursing and Midwifery Council on Twitter, a fitness to practise committee hearing heard.

The incidents happened between May 2012 and June 2013.

MacKenzie, who has not worked as a nurse since October 2012, was suspended in 2015 and has been the subject of a conditions of practice order since October of that year.

But the NMC have now decided to replace that order with a striking-off order which come into effect on June 2 this year.

MazKenzie was being investigated after a Scott House female resident absconded in May 2012. He claimed she was gone for less than 15 minutes but management believed it was nearer 45.

He was also being censured for not filing a report when another patient was late returning from free time, and for letting a third service user ride alone on a fairground ride in Bury town centre.

The NMC was told that the Twitter and blog comments, where he told fellow staff members to die, abused another as snivelling and made unsavoury comments regarding incest to a third, were made between February and June 2013.

MacKenzie, who admitted the charges, claimed he had been under stress at the time. He said he had taken down his Twitter account and blog, accepting he was ashamed of their contents.

Imposing a striking off order, the panel said: "In the panel’s view, Mr MacKenzie’s failure to address the serious concerns found in his practice, demonstrated a disregard for his regulator and the panel is satisfied that a striking-off order is the only order that would be sufficient to protect the public and satisfy the wider public interest in maintaining public confidence in the profession and the regulatory process and to declare and uphold proper standards of conduct and behaviour."