Nurse suspended over malpractice

A SCOTS nurse has been found guilty of malpractice after giving a patient potentially fatal medication without checking his details.

Morag Chapman, who worked at a rehab unit for elderly patients in Aberdeen’s City Hospital and who also gave paracetamol orally to a man who had been categorised “nil by mouth”, has been suspended.

A Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel found Ms Chapman guilty of five charges between February and May 2009 at a hearing in Edinburgh at the beginning of the month.

The panel decided that Ms Chapman, who failed to attend the hearing, had shown “no genuine remorse” for her actions and gave her a 12-month suspension order.

She washed a patient with a fractured back without using a back brace and did not check an elderly patient’s name and date of birth before giving him a 70mg dose of diamorphine.