A hospital nurse who failed to carry out checks on patients and then falsified records to cover up has been banned from the profession for six months. Joanne Blyth-Smith was working at Julian Hospital, a mental health facility in Norwich, when she was found to have falsely made records of observations that did not happen during her shift. A misconduct panel heard that Mrs Blyth-Smith was tasked with completing hourly observations on 17 people at the Bowthorpe Road site - including one high-risk patient who required checks every 15 minutes.
However, after failing to complete this task, she instead made an inaccurate record suggesting she had. After bosses reviewed CCTV to confirm she had not carried out the observations, a disciplinary hearing was held. During this, Mrs Blyth-Smith confirmed she did not complete the observations - but said she was not aware she had been allocated the task.
The case was referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council by the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, which held a misconduct panel last month. Following this hearing, Mrs Blyth-Smith was suspended from nursing for six months. The panel heard that the nurse was expected to carry out the observations between 3pm and 4pm on May 8, 2022.
But when a colleague pointed out to her at 4pm the observations had not been done, she made the inaccurate recordings. In an official report, the panel wrote: "Her dishonest actions compromised patient safety and have the potential to cause serious harm t.