A Bristol City Council social worker who tried to obtain a vulnerable woman’s bank PIN and let her own relatives get paid inappropriately by her for odd jobs has been barred from the profession. Elaine Lillian McDowell also arranged an unnecessary emergency transfer, bypassing the necessary usual checks, from an extra care housing flat to a full-time nursing home that was not in the resident’s interests and compromised her dignity, before falsifying records to cover her tracks, a panel ruled.
The move happened so suddenly and to the surprise of care managers at Bluebell Gardens housing complex in Stockwood, where the woman was happy, that she was not even allowed to finish the meal she was eating, the fitness-to-practice hearing was told. Ms McDowell was removed from the Social Work England register after being found to have seriously breached appropriate professional boundaries and standards, amounting to misconduct.
The panel’s report said that between June 2018 and February 2019 she visited the woman, who has since died, “far more frequently” than would be expected for an employee in the council’s discharge-to-assess team, which makes short-term interventions. It ruled that the social worker allowed members of her family to get paid by the woman, Service User 1 (SU1), to provide support.
