Shropshire Star

Shropshire nurse struck off over faking patient records

A nurse from Shropshire who faked patient records to meet targets at Stafford Hospital has been struck off.

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Hospital bosses today pledged to take "appropriate action" over Sharon Turner, who now works at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, after she and fellow nurse Tracy White became the first people to be struck off over the scandal surrounding Stafford Hospital.

The pair falsified accident and emergency discharge times to avoid missing a government target for patients to be dealt with within four hours, a hearing was told.

A Nursing and Midwifery Council panel earlier this week found the pair guilty of misconduct.

Chair of the hearing Stephen Redmond said Turner and White had put "statistical targets" above patient care.

Pressure to meet targets came "from the top" of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

A string of allegations were found proved against Turner over a period stretching two years between July 2007 and October 2009.

She instructed nurses to lie about waiting times in A&E and said she planned to make another nurse's life "hell and get rid of him in six months".

Turner also told a depressed nurse who had made a suicide attempt that he should "have done the job properly" and called an Asian doctor "Osama's mate".

Mr Redmond said: "It is a fundamental tenet of the nursing profession that you should put patients and their care first.

"You did not do that.

"Instead you made the achieving the statistical targets, by honest or dishonest means, your primary aim.

"This was not a one-off failing, rather it was at the heart of the way you worked over a sustained period." Sarah Bloomfield, deputy chief nurse at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital

NHS Trust, said: "The trust acknowledges the outcome of the fitness to practice hearing at the Nursing and Midwifery Council today and will ensure that appropriate action is taken with regard to this case."

The cases began in March but had been repeatedly adjourned and had only begun considering evidence against the pair this week.

Another five nurses from Mid Staffordshire are having their cases considered by the NMC including the former chief nurse, Jan Harry.

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