A nurse for Greater Manchester’s troubled mental health trust has been stricken off after going on a ‘racist’ tirade.
Neill Antony Gold was named in a report from a misconduct hearing, held and published by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The hearing heard how Mr Gold had called a colleague ‘a foreign c***’, mimicking their pronunciation of a ward name, and demanding they ‘speak English properly’ over the course of the rant.
Neill Gold was a nurse at the Edenfield Centre, a troubled inpatient facility run by Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust (GMMH). The centre was exposed in an explosive Panorama programme last year, which featured allegations of staff abusing vulnerable, mentally ill patients.
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The council’s fitness to practise committee held the tribunal from May 15 to May 25, resulting in the mental health nurse being stricken off and receiving a suspension order. The report reads how as well as calling multiple co-workers ‘c***s’, Mr Gold abandoned wards while on duty without informing the necessary managers, and walked out of wards with the medication keys which ‘should never be taken off a unit due to them being critical in delivering patient care’.
He also asked a colleague to ‘forge his signature’ on official paperwork.
The panel recorded how it found allegations that Mr Gold verbally abused colleagues ‘proved’. The report reads that, on February 28, 2021, he ‘swore repeatedly around colleagues and within hearing distance of patients’.
Mr Gold then ‘banged a telephone receiver down and described the ward manager as a “useless c***”’, called another co-worker a ‘foreign c***’, told them they needed to ‘speak English properly’, and ‘mimicked [the colleague’s] pronunciation of ‘Eskdale’ ward’.
The panel considered the statement of a witness who described the tirade: “‘...[Mr Gold] was shouting about how staff cannot do their job properly saying “that [colleague] is a useless c***”. Then he shouted out “and that foreign c*** in there (pointing to seclusion) [area] on the fucking radio, can’t speak f****** English properly, I can’t understand a word he says”…’”
The council determined that the comments were ‘racially motivated’ and ‘racist’, the report reads.
Some months after the ‘racist’ rant, on May 13, 2021, Mr Gold ‘asked [a colleague] to forge [his own] signature on a medication card’ - a charge which was again found proven at the tribunal. The report said Mr Gold’s ‘conduct lacked integrity in that [he was] seeking to persuade [the colleague] to conceal an error [he] had made’.
The same day, the council found that Mr Gold ‘failed to ensure safe patient care’ when he left a ward while on duty without informing the site duty manager, and left the ward with the medication keys.
One witness told the panel: “‘I saw that [Mr Gold] had the medication keys from Loweswater ward on him. He was holding the main Edenfield keys in his hand, which are large and dark metal, and also clearly visible was a bunch of smaller mostly silver keys that are typical medication keys…
“Medication keys should never be taken off a unit due to them being critical in delivering patient care.”
Concluding, the report reads: “The panel considered that all of the charges found proved, both individually and cumulatively, amounted to misconduct in this case. It identified three particular areas, namely: racially motivated behaviour, a failure to maintain safe patient care, and an attempt to falsify documentation. The panel considered that these three areas fell far short of what is expected of a registered nurse, and any other reasonable healthcare professional would consider these actions to be misconduct.
“Mr Gold’s actions could have had serious consequences, and his behaviour was wholly inappropriate in the circumstances. The panel considered that Mr Gold displayed a lack of professionalism as well as attitudinal concerns, and there is an expectation that all nurses will behave in a non-discriminatory way, towards both staff and patients.
“The panel took account of the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s guidance, in which it is clear that racism will not be tolerated in healthcare.”
Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust (GMMH), which runs the Edenfield Centre, responded to the tribunal findings. Juliette Tait, Acting Director of HR said: “Our Trust does not tolerate misconduct of any kind, and is appalled by the conduct of this individual, which is a significant departure from the standards we expect.
“We will act upon all and any concerns appropriately in order to protect the safety of our patients. We cooperated fully with the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s investigation and are satisfied with the outcome.”
Last year, an explosive Panorama investigation captured apparent humiliation, verbal abuse, mocking and assault of patients – plus alleged falsification of medical paperwork. The documentary focused on the inpatient facility, the Edenfield Centre, on the site of the former Prestwich Hospital.
Numerous investigations – police, independent and internal – sprang up, uncovering sweeping concerns about the beleaguered trust’s culture and the fundamental safety of its users. Concerns were also raised by independent investigators that the Edenfield Centre had it's own leadership style which leaked out to other parts of the trust as staff within the unit moved out to different jobs.
“Edenfield became its own world,” Good Governance Institute investigators explained in a report revealed in March.
Over a period of years, the centre became ‘closed to external influence’, breeding a distinct ‘Edenfield management style’ that was ‘combative’ and at odds with other parts of the trust.
In April, GMMH’s chief executive officer announced his resignation as he claimed the trust is on the road to recovery, amid national intervention from the NHS which plunged the huge mental health provider into the equivalent of special measures.
Back in April, the Manchester Evening News documented the tragedy caused over years by dangerously ill GMMH patients going without the right support. In particular, many patients taking their own lives before coroners have determined that short staffing within the trust, such as lacking care coordinators, contributed to their deaths.
The council added: “Nurses occupy a position of privilege and trust in society and are expected at all times to be professional. Patients and their families must be able to trust nurses with their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
“To justify that trust, nurses must be honest and open and act with integrity. They must make sure that their conduct at all times justifies both their patients’ and the public’s trust in the profession.”
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