Shropshire hospital ward manager facing misconduct charges
A ward manager at a Shropshire hospital is facing a host of misconduct charges including allegedly saying she would “gouge a colleague’s eyeballs out and shove them down her throat.”
Deborah Povall was working at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic (RJAH) Hospital in Gobowen, near Oswestry, at the time the allegations reportedly happened between 2017 and 2019.
She is accused of failing to demonstrate appropriate standards of leadership, including ensuring staffing levels were adequate, and mainipulating bed allocations so as to secure a higher number of admissions onto the ward which resulted in premature patient discharges.
Other charges she faces:
Prioritising the adminstration of a controlled drug over assisting an incontinent patient who had soiled themselves
DeclinIing to assist with a patient’s catheter and requested for him to continue with observations instead
Failing to maintain patient care by implementing rigid routines by 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 see will wee” rather than request a bladder scan, failing to escalate care for a patient whose oxygen saturation had dropped
Saying a patient can “go home tomorrow” despite 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.
Another alleged occasion when Ms Povall reportedly failed to check the handover notes was before carrying out a drugs round, which resulted in a patient being given metformin to treate diabetes when it was not appropriate to do so.
Bullying allegations
Meanwhile, Ms Povall also faces a number of allegations regarding how she treated colleagues. This includes her reportedly being “unprofessional” and “abrupt” in her communication towards one colleague, which caused her to raise a grievance and resign.
Ms Povall is accused of saying, “you could have apologised” when the colleague arrived late, being aggressive in her tone, and telling another colleague, “I had to stop myself from as I would rather gouge her eyeballs out and shove them down her throat.”
NMC apologises for the delay
Despite the alleged incidents taking place up to eight years ago, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has only just started a fitness to practive substantive hearing into Ms Povall’s reported behaviour.
Speaking at the hearing on Wednesday (August 20), Ms Povall said that despite being resilient and good support around her, the continued delays are impacting her in terms of the stress involved.
Richard Weydert-Jacquard, who was chairing the hearing, apolgised for the delays.
“The panel has done its absolute best to mitigate things, but obviously the situation was quite complex and it took some time to find the right solutions,” he said.
“Mood swings”
On Wednesday, the panel heard from Gemma Littley, who worked with Ms Povall until she was suspended in July 2019.
She accused Ms Povall of being “unprofessional in the atmosphere she created”, with her mood swings putting staff “on edge.”
“Some days you could approach Deborah, some days you couldn’t, and her mood could vary,” said Ms Littley.
“I actually had a good working relationship with her, but I witnessed other people that didn’t.”
Ms Littley explained there were 30 beds on the ward, with a ratio of one nurse looking after eight patients. However, there were occasions when they would go over the allocated number.
“We would be told to sit patients in the window so they wouldn’t be in a natural bed space,” said Ms Littley.
“There is no oxygen above their head, that was the risk I saw. We do have portable oxygen, but in that situation it didn’t feel right.”
Ms Littley went on to add that a nearby ward which looked after the same type of patients always seemed calm and well staffed, whereas hers “was chaotic.”
She explained that Ms Povall would sometimes work seven days a week, and even came in at 5.30am despite not starting until 7am.
“We didn’t have a discharge lounge at the time,” said Ms Littley.
“I would see other nurses would refuse patients to come back from recovery until we had the bed space, so there were options that we had.
“It almost felt there was a culture of, we would just be expected to discharge them anyway. I believe Deb was in most days, so even if we had a nurse in charge, she would overrule them anyway.”
The hearing continues.
