Huncoat care home nurse struck off

11:25am Tuesday 15th April 2008

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A CARE home nurse who turned off an alarm system so he could watch televised football in peace has been struck off.

Peter Helps, 44, whose actions allowed a dementia patient to wander out of the home, has now been kicked out of the profession after a hearing by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Helps, of Oswaldtwistle, was working at the Mapleford Residential Nursing Home, Bolton Avenue, Huncoat, when he was accused of misconduct over the neglect of residents during the World Cup in June 2006.

Now it has been revealed that a year earlier Helps had been cautioned for increasing a patient's Methadone prescriptions when he was supposed to be reducing them.

And Helps had already faced three internal hearings arising from his poor treatment of residents at the Substance Misuse Service in Ashton under Lyne.

The nurse, who did not attend the latest hearing, was found guilty of withholding cigarettes from residents for no apparent reason, spending long periods of his shift sitting in the lounge watching TV with his feet up on the table and, silencing the call buzzer and speaking inappropriately to a resident.

Panel chair Rachel O'Connell said his actions amounted to 'psychological and verbal abuse' of the patients in his care.

Helps was the senior nurse in charge at the home over the weekend of June 17 and 18, 2006.

Ms O'Connor heard that Hope spent most of the weekend with his feet up enjoying live matches after switching off the emergency call buzzers.

But his actions also deactivated the sound on the door alarm and an elderly dementia patient was able to slip out of the Bolton Avenue building unnoticed.

He was later found next to a busy road.

Delivering a verdict that Helps be struck off the nursing register Ms O'Connell said: "Resident A was found in the garden of a neighbouring property.

"It was very fortunate he had not turned in another direction and walked into the main road. When he was found he was disorientated.

"The misconduct is fundamentally incompatible with continuing to be registered with the NMC.

"This was a serious breach of his duty of care and abusive of vulnerable residents."

The home manager Julie Hammond told the panel how the other nurse and several care assistants complained about the weekend's shambles and Helps' behaviour.

Helps later left the home.