An Aberdeen child carer has been banned from distributing medicine after receiving a formal warning from officials.
Susan Erskine was told she couldn’t administer medicine for three months and given a one-year warning on her social service registration.
While she was employed as a young people’s worker at Aberlour Options in Bucksburn in 2017, Erskine “failed to administer medication and attempted to give higher dosages of medication than prescribed”.
The Scottish Social Services Council said she had “made serious medication errors in relation to multiple service users”.
The youth care worker also failed to ask a second staff member to be present during medication handouts and neglected to report the errors to her manager.
She had to be reminded of doses by youngsters for who she was meant to be caring.
Watchdogs ruled her behaviour had been an abuse of trust, which fell below professional standards and created “potential for significant harm to service users”.
The report added: “The conduct took place in a service where vulnerable young people
are dependant on workers.
“It is not acceptable for young people to have to intervene to protect themselves from medication errors.”
Aberlour Child Care Trust confirmed that Erskine was no longer employed by them.
An Aberdeenshire carer was also sanctioned after causing tenants “fear and distress”.
Watchdogs have placed a warning on Lorraine Clark’s social services registration for three years after they found her fitness to practice impaired.
When employed as a home carer in Inverurie, she entered multiple people’s houses without permission and never told tenants she was there while in the prioperties.
The Scottish Social Services Council said that service users had the “right to expect
that their privacy and sense of safety” would be “respected and maintained” by workers.
The also noted that Clark’s actions had “violated this trust and made the tenants feel unsafe in their own homes”.
A “pattern of concerning behaviour” by the carer continued after employers had spoken to her about it which had damaged the “reputation of the profession”.
She has been ordered to make employers aware of her sanction, complete new training, hand in a reflective account and engage in formal supervision every six weeks for a year.
A spokeswoman for Aberdeenshire council said they had “noted the findings” and would “act accordingly”.