A CARE home nurse who was found guilty of assaulting a vulnerable dementia patient has been struck off.
Registered nurse Hugh McCooey tipped an elderly resident out of a chair at Coundon Manor Care Home after the patient wet himself but refused to change his trousers.
Other staff at the home in Foster Road called Mr McCooey, who was above them in seniority, to help with the patient.
But the nurse – who had worked in the profession for nearly 30 years – tipped him forward, causing him to fall out of the chair onto his hands and knees.
Following the incident in July 2015, Mr McCooey was found guilty of assault at Coventry Magistrates Court in October that year, and ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work.
The Nursing and Midwife Council (NMC) decided to suspend him for a year. But following a review of the order, it has now struck him off the nursing register.
A spokesman for the panel said: “The patient was a vulnerable resident with dementia. Mr McCooey’s actions could have caused him emotional and physical harm.
“By tipping the chair in order to get him out, Mr McCooey has brought the nursing profession into disrepute and had failed to treat the resident with the dignity and respect he deserved.
“Although this was a single incident in a long career as a nurse, Mr McCooey’s actions were serious enough to warrant a criminal conviction. He breached a fundamental tenet of the nursing profession by failing to act lawfully.”
In a meeting after the incident the nurse told the home he accepted the tipping of the chair was not appropriate and regretted his actions.
He also said he should have given the patient more time before coming back to him.
The NMC panel says as a learning disability nurse he would have known how to deal with a vulnerable resident with dementia.
Other carers had called for him requiring his expertise to deal with the patient and ‘expected him to understand, be tolerant of and skilled’ in managing challenging behaviour.
Coming to their decision, the panel said: “Patients and their families must be able to trust nurses with their lives and the lives of their loved ones.”
