Staff “were fearful” Oswestry ward manager would find out when they 'blew the whistle'
The woman who investigated serious allegations about a hospital ward manager’s conduct said the staff who blew the whistle were fearful that she would find out.
Deborah Povall is currently the centre of a fit to practice substantive hearing that is being carried out by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
The allegations concern Ms Povall’s role as a ward manager at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic (RJAH) Hospital in Gobowen, near Oswestry, 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 include:
Prioritising the administration of a controlled drug over assisting an incontinent patient who had soiled themselves
Declining 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 treat diabetes when it was not appropriate to do so.
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.
