A care home nurse who showed no evidence of understanding the drug mistakes she made has been struck off.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel heard last week how Karen Costello had made several drug errors with vulnerable residents.
The panel heard how she didn’t administer five lots of drugs to patients, and how she twice miscalculated the stock of blood-thinning tablets, Warfarin, and how she sometimes forgot to sign the charts of one or more residents at the Marley Court Care Home in Chorley.
The nurse has previously been suspended for nine months by the NMC after other allegations were proved against her. This order has been escalated to her being struck off as a nurse.
The NMC panel said Mrs Castello showed “no insight as to the seriousness of her errors, or their potential consequences. In addition, she had provided no evidence of having taken steps to remedy her failures.”
The report by the NMC said that Mrs Costello felt “perfectly fine and comfortable medicating.”
The report goes no to say that she “pointed to ‘other nurses’ suffering from the same shortcomings in their practice”.
The panel heard that Mrs Costello resigned from the care home in 2014 and she doesn’t intend to renew her nursing registration.
The panel believe that the risk of further misconducted by Mrs Costello was of concern and therefore striking off was 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.”
The Marley Court Care home was unavailable for comment.
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