Decision in former Gobowen nurse's conduct hearing won’t be handed down until the new year

Debbie Povall faces a number of allegations that relate to her time as a ward manager at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Gobowen, near Oswestry, between 2017 and 2019. She has since left the trust and now works as a registered nurse who provides healthcare assessments for the Department for Work and Pensions.

One of the allegations Ms Povall faces is that she bullied or intimidated colleagues on a number of occasions between 2017 and 2019, and was unprofessional and abrupt in her communication. This particularly relates to a staff member referred to as “Colleague C”.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) alleges that, during a morning handover, Ms Povall said to Colleague C “you could have apologised” when she arrived late. It is also alleged that Ms Povall’s tone was “aggressive” when Colleague C stepped in to help regarding issues with an international normalised ratio machine (used for people on blood-thinning medication to test blood clotting time).

Ms Povall has denied those charges.

However, she has admitted sending a text message to another colleague about Colleague C, which read: “I had to stop myself from [sic] as I would rather gouge her eyeballs out and shove them down her throat”.

She told the NMC substantive hearing panel that she apologised to the colleague and appreciates that it was unprofessional and unacceptable.

However, while she accepts that the colleague raised a grievance, she said it is difficult to say whether Colleague C’s subsequent resignation was because of herself.

The NMC also alleges that Ms Povall’s conduct caused a risk to patient care.

The nurse has admitted that, between June 2018 and June 2019, she failed to preserve patient safety by working excessive hours.

However, she has denied all the other charges.

They include:

• Prioritising the administration of a controlled drug over assisting an incontinent patient who had soiled themselves

• Declining to assist a colleague with a patient’s catheter and requesting for the colleague to continue with observations instead

• Failing to maintain patient care by implementing rigid routines, making staff work from one end of the ward to another in the morning, leaving high-risk patients without any supervision

• Telling a colleague to “leave the patient and she will wee” rather than request a bladder scan

• Failing to escalate care for a patient whose oxygen saturation had dropped

• Saying a patient needed to “go home tomorrow” despite the patient having low haemogoblin and requiring a blood transfusion

• Failing to isolate a patient who had not had a scan for a type of bacteria

• Not recording a patient’s blood results on the handover notes

• Failing to take the necessary checks when discharging patients, including one who raised concerns that she had no food at home.

The hearing initially started in August, but was adjourned part-heard.

It resumed on Monday, December 15 with closing submissions read out three days later.

Since then, the panel has since been considering what, if any, of the outstanding facts are proven. Then, if they are, it will determine whether Ms Povall’s fitness to practise is impaired.

However, their decision had not been reached by the time the hearing had ended on Tuesday (December 23).

It is now set to be handed down on Monday, January 5.