A nurse who was employed at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary has been found to be incompetent by watchdogs.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council has investigated concerns about Dianne Stephenson’s competence raised while she worked at the hospital between 2017 and 2018.
While working as an anaesthetic nurse at NHS Grampian’s short stay theatres, staff raised concerns about her clinical practice and communication skills and she was moved to a scrub nurse role.
In February 2018, Stephenson was placed on an action plan but resigned before completing it.
Now the NMC has ruled she was incompetent, noting she couldn’t work unsupervised, needing the floor nurse to direct her.
As well as this, the panel noted she had a “lack of knowledge” on various types of stitches, was unable to identify medical equipment, had “lack of understanding” of certain medical procedures, wasn’t able to identify a hernia or correctly complete surgical counts and did not anticipate the surgeons needs during surgery.
The panel found that Stephenson had “in the past acted so as to put patients at unwarranted risk of harm” and her “clinical failings related to basic and fundamental tenets of nursing practice”.
Watchdogs added that the former nurse also “sought to blame others” for her imposition and “took no responsibility” for her failings.
Although she accepted that some of the incidents were true, she denied others.
Stephenson is now subject to a conditions of practice order for three years.