A nurse has been suspended for three months after allegedly forcing medication into a patient's mouth at a care home near Bristol. Reni Vankova Kirilova began employment at Charterhouse Care Home in the Chocolate Quarter in Keynsham on May 23, 2019.
The Nurse and Midwifery Council has found that on May 30 that year, she forced a dementia patient to take medicine and held the patient's mouth closed. She was suspended from work on 7 June, 2019 pending a police investigation, and subsequently resigned from employment at the care home on the same day. The police investigation took no further action against her.
Witnesses told a Nurse and Midwifery Council hearing that Ms Kirilova forced medication into the patient’s mouth. According to one witness, the patient was "distressed" throughout the episode and she was "waving her hands everywhere" and was shouting, "no, no, no".
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One witness claimed Ms Kirilova "put [her] fingers over the patient’s mouth and lips to keep them closed", but Ms Kirilova disputed this and she instead described "holding [her] hand under the patient’s chin and tilting the head up". The panel found that the allegation of her "placing [her] hand over her mouth" was not proved, but that she did "hold her mouth closed" in some way.
Witnesses also reported hearing Ms Kirilova telling the patient to "take your tablets" and repeating the words "she needs to take her meds". The home manager for the Chocolate Quarter at the time of the incident claimed she saw Ms Kirilova forcing tablets into a patient’s mouth and placing fingers in the patient’s mouth, and stated that she would have expected the nurse to try different approaches to medication administration if not successful and ask for colleagues to help her.
Another witness quoted in the decision document said: "This would not have been the way I approach residents when giving medication." In her defence, Ms Kirilova said that the patient opened her mouth and took the pill with water and that she simply lifted the patient’s chin to assist her, and she denied that the pill was forced into the patient's mouth.
She also told the hearing that she did not hold the patient’s lips shut, and even though she accepted that patient was distressed, she said that it was only for a couple of minutes. She added that when she started working at the care home, she had one day of shadowing another member of staff, who was an agency nurse, but after that she was giving medication to patients on the unit and working alone.
She said that she resigned after she received a call from the Unit Manager, who told her not to come in to work, and she was upset by the call so she quit. But the panel gave her a suspension order for a period of three months, and in its report it wrote that the patient was "put at risk of harm and was caused emotional harm as a result of your misconduct".
It continued: "Your misconduct had breached the fundamental tenets of the nursing profession and therefore brought its reputation into disrepute. Regarding insight, the panel considered that you had made significant progress and have reflected on what you have done wrong. However the panel was not satisfied that your insight has developed so far to allow it conclude that your fitness to practise is not currently impaired."
Julie Haydon, the director of people at St Monica Trust, which runs the care home, said: “The well-being of our residents is of paramount importance to the Trust and we take any allegations that may compromise the safety of our residents extremely seriously. The individual concerned was immediately suspended from work pending disciplinary, safeguarding and police investigations, and subsequently resigned from the Trust’s employment.
"The Trust will always take the strongest action against any colleague whose behaviour falls short of the standards we expect and we welcome the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s decision.”
