Care home nurse is struck off after lying to family over circumstances

Care home nurse is struck off after lying to a grandmother’s grieving family that she had died in her sleep when she had actually choked to death on a sandwich

• An inquest ruled there’d been a number of ‘inadequacies’ in run up to her death

A care home nurse has been struck off after he lied to a grieving family that a grandmother died in her sleep – when she had actually choked to death on a sandwich.

An inquest jury ruled there had been a damning number of ‘inadequacies’ at 73-year-old Joan George’s care home in the run-up to her death.

Now a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) hearing has been told how nurse Neil Wright lied to Mrs George’s family about how she had died.

He told daughter-in-law Mandy George that the pensioner was fed her supper at 10.15pm and was put to bed where she was later found dead.

But the next day Mrs George was told by another carer to ask questions ‘as they were not being told the truth about what happened’. 

An inquest jury found a number of ‘inadequacies’ at a care home led to Joan George’s (pictured) death after she choked to death on a sandwich

Documents later revealed the widow of an RAF engineer, who had dementia, began choking on a sandwich at Abbey Court Care Home, in Bourne, Lincolnshire, while being fed by a care assistant

Documents later revealed the widow of an RAF engineer, who had dementia, began choking on a sandwich at Abbey Court Care Home, in Bourne, Lincolnshire, while being fed by a care assistant.

Mrs George, who had four grandchildren, was admitted to the home 13 months before she died in September 2016. An inquest at Lincoln in 2019 heard a care plan did not reflect her increased risk of choking.

The care assistant who was feeding Mrs George a sandwich admitted she was unable to help Mrs George as she choked as she had not received specific first-aid training.

Wright, who responded when the carer pressed the emergency button, attempted to remove the blockage, carried out back-slaps and the Heimlich manoeuvre and called 999. 

When the operator instructed him to do CPR, he said Mrs George had a ‘do-not-resuscitate’ order so CPR was not performed, the inquest heard.

The NMC panel concluded Wright was ‘fully aware of the circumstances’ of Mrs George’s death, but had ‘not been open nor honest’. He was struck off the Nursing and Midwifery Council register for 18 months after the hearing last week.

The inquest jury recorded a narrative verdict that ‘inadequacies of training, inadequacies of record keeping’ led to Mrs George’s death.

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