A SENIOR social worker has quit the profession after his bosses at Blackburn with Darwen Council raised concerns about his treatment of two cases involving vulnerable service users.

James Francis Allerton, who worked for the authority's learning disabilities team, had failed to help a vulnerable elderly man with medication, the Health and Care Profession (HCPC) conduct and competence committee was told.

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Later it emerged he had taken nearly twice the dose of antibiotics recommended for a leg infection, the panel heard.

Allerton had arranged for a telecare operator to remind the man when to take his medication but failed to make it an urgent request.

While the man was not unduly harmed by the May 2013 incident, another complaint was also lodged by the council's moving and handling team over another service user.

The committee heard that Places for People, which provided a handling service for the unnamed patient, had been told to withdraw their services for the second individual, named only as 'B'.

The family of 'B' had raised concerns on July 11 that the service was being withdrawn but Allerton had only arranged for an assessment to be carried out on July 19.

Allerton, who had worked for the council since 2006, originally denied that his fitness to practice was impaired but later admitted six substantive charges and agreed to be voluntarily removed from the social care register.

In a letter, he expressed regret for his actions and for the potential risk that his actions had posed to service users.

He confirmed that he had left the council's employment in November 2013, had not worked in a social care setting since, and had no intention of pursuing a career in the field.

It was alleged that Allerton's conduct 'showed a fundamental lack of appreciation by Mr Allerton of when to intervene to protect service users from harm'.

A HCPC spokesman, agreeing to his removal from the register, said: "The panel was of the view that Mr Allerton’s actions demonstrated a serious failure of professional judgement in relation to Service User A’s ability to self-medicate, and in relation to both service users he failed to make suitable risk assessments."

Steve Tingle, Blackburn council's director of commissioning and adults, said: "We can confirm the individual no longer works for the council. It would be inappropriate to comment any further."