A nurse carpeted for the second time over allegations of misconduct has been struck off by watchdogs.
Craig Campbell will no longer be able to practice following the decision of nurses' regulatory body the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Campbell, of Johnstone, faced four allegations from an incident at Cochrane Care Home where he previously worked.
He was banned from the profession following a decision of the NMC on Thursday after a hearing found he had been under the influence of a substance at work.
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Campbell was also found with a drug meant for a patient in his possession without "clinical justification".
The 41-year-old worked at the home on November 28, 2018 when the incidents took place.
The NMC found the nurse had attended work "under the influence of medication or an unknown substance".
Former colleagues told how the dosed up medic appeared out of sorts during his shift, with the home's deputy manager telling in evidence how Campbell's "eyes were droopy like he was about to fall asleep".
She added: "I was halfway through listening to the handover when I noticed he dropped the key at least three times and he said he was not feeling well he looked drunk.".
The woman also told how his speech was "slurred" and said she had diffculty understanding him.
She said both she and the care home's manager spoke to Campbell because they were "so concerned" about his behaviour and said during a conversation with them he wasn't "making any sense at all" and wasn't even capable of answering their questions correctly, saying he kept "jumping from one story to another".
The care home's manager also told investigators that Campbell"struggled to open" a cake box she had brought in and left on a desk, adding he had: "great difficulty managing to get a bit from one of the cakes" and "seemed to lack awareness of the distance between his hand and his mouth".
She quizzed him over whether he had taken any medication while he was on the shift and admitted she was "very concerned" over his "behaviour, speech and thought process".
He also "seemed drowsy and unsteady on his feet".
The woman said she was "experienced in treating people under the influence of drugs" and said's Campbell's appearance was "consistent with common symptoms of drug use".
Campbell is said to have denied that he was under the influence of medication or an "unknown substance" and said he "felt he was acting normally at all times"
but the panel found "mutually corroborative and credible evidence" of "erratic behaviour" while he was on the shift and concluded that "in the absence of any other explanation", it "found that it was more likely than not" that he was under the "influence of medication and/or an unknown substance".
However, he admitted that he was found with an ampoule of painkiller and anti-psychotic medication Levomepromazine - used often on end of life patients as a sedative to treat agitation and delirium - "without any justification" during the incident.
The drug had been earmarked for a patient at the home.
An allegation that Campbell had acted dishonestly in taking the medication for his own use was found not to have been proven after the disgraced nurse told how he had been asked to give flu jabs to residents that day and had set up a medication trolley.
He said the ampoule - meant for a resident who had "recently" died, had been left in a holder on the trolley with no indication of who it had been meant for.
Campbell said he put the ampoule in his pocket to "ensure it was not picked up by a resident", with the intention of handing it in or reporting it once he had finished the flu jab round but was called away to assist in a medical emergency, leading him to "forget" it was there until he voluntarily emptied his pockets later in front of the senior staff.
His explanation was described as "both reasonable and credible" by the hearing but was not found to be a "true clinical justification".
A further allegation that Campbell injected himself with a drug in the gents toilet at the home was also thrown out after a staff nurse colleague due to give evidence withdrew his co-operation over "irritation" with the NMC's process.
Registered nurse Campbell was suspended from the home the following day as they conducted an internal investigation and faced a disciplinary hearing on December 20 2018, before being dismissed for "gross misconduct" on Hogmanay 2018.
Campbell, who qualified as a nurse in 2006, is not currently working, the NMC was told.
They found that the nurse's conduct fell "significantly short of the standards expected of a registered nurse" and amounted to breaches of the code of practice, as the case was deemed: "sufficiently serious and amounts to a significant departure from the standards expected of a nurse and amounted to misconduct", adding: "The panel was of the view that attending work while under the influence of medication and/or an unknown substance was undoubtedly a very serious matter which put care home residents at risk of harm".
They found that Campbell's fitness to practice was "impaired" as a result of his misconduct, ruling: "The panel finds that care home residents were put at risk and could have been caused physical and emotional harm as a result of your misconduct.
"Your misconduct had breached the fundamental tenets of the nursing profession and therefore brought its reputation into disrepute."The ruling added: "The panel was of the view that the findings in this particular case demonstrate that Mr Campbell's actions were serious and to allow him to continue practising would undermine public confidence in the profession and in the NMC as a regulatory body.
"Balancing all of these factors and after taking into account all the evidence before it during this case, the panel determined that the appropriate and proportionate sanction is that of a striking-off order."
The nurse has a "previous fitness to practice history with the NMC" after he stole potent sedative Midazolam in 2007, while he worked for the NHS at Paisley's Royal Alexandra Hospital.
He claimed to have taken the drug, used by surgeons on patients about to undergo medical procedures, to help him deal with personal problems.
Instead, he procured the drug for his own use and injected it while working as a nurse at the Corsebar Road hospital.
He also admitted forging prescriptions so he could access tranquiliser Diazepam while working as a Barrhead-based district nurse and was only rumbled when an eagle-eyed pharmacist realised the doctor's signature had been forged.
But he was allowed to continue his career after a 2011 NMC hearing heard he had suffered personal difficulties and ruled his actions were "remediable" and had not directly harmed patients.
They imposed a five-year caution order instead, meaning his actions had to be disclosed to potential employer until 2016.
At the lastest hearing, the NMC panel mentioned his previous history related to: "taking the drug Midazolam from the hospital where you worked without consent, self-administering the same, fraudulently obtaining prescription drugs, including Diazepam from the medical practices where you worked as a community nurse, all for your own use."
Incredibly, papers disclose Campbell was allowed to return to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde as a "bank" nurse in 2017.
An interim 18 month suspension order imposed on Campbell will be replaced by the order to strike him off of the nursing register.
Cochrane Care Home, in Quarrellton Road, was placed into administration by previous owners Silverline Care last year and was taken over by Anavo Group in March 2021.
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