Deputy head nurse banned from work

A deputy head nurse who gave an elderly patient a day's worth of drugs in just one hour was banned from work for a year,

Bungling Sheila Cockx, 60, made a series of basic errors after returning from a three-month suspension from duty.

Cockx had to ask junior colleagues at Peterhouse Care Home, in Church Street, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex,how to use a digital thermometer and take a patient's blood pressure.

She also failed to hand out the daily medicine for four frail patients.

Two months later on November 9, 2004, she was suspended for a second time after giving an elderly man a dangerous overdose of the drug Hyoscine.

Cockx set his syringe driver to give him the drug over one hour instead of 24 hours.

The mistake was only noticed by a night shift nurse who found the patient - known only as E - feeling dry, flushed and uncomfortable.

Fortunately the patient did not suffer any long term effects.

Fellow nurse, Hazel Silverlock, told the panel although Cockx was 'kind, caring and compassionate' towards patients, she did not know how anything worked.

Ms Silverlock said: 'When she came back from her three-month suspension there was a marked change.

'There were procedures I needed to go through with her.

'It appeared while she was off she had lost confidence in her skills.'