A nurse and healthcare assistant on a specialist stroke unit in Blackpool joked about putting patients to sleep “forever”, a court heard.
Catherine Hudson, 54, is accused of ill treating five patients in her care by administering sedatives to them “to keep them quiet”. Her colleague, healthcare assistant Charlotte Wilmot, 48, is accused of conspiring to administer the drugs with Hudson and encouraging her to sedate patients unnecessarily.
Hudson denies seven counts of ill treatment of patients by administering sedatives, and theft of drugs from her employer. Wilmot denies conspiracy to ill treat patients and encouraging the commission of an offence (ill treatment).
Hudson, of Coriander Close, Blackpool, is also alleged to have withheld laxatives from patients to avoid dealing with the effects of the medication.
“There’ll be no sh***ing on my ward”, she is alleged to have said.
Prosecuting, Peter Wright KC, said there was “a culture of abuse” on the stroke ward at Blackpool Victoria Hospital in 2017 and 2018. The dispensing system was “so lax that if some nursing staff felt so inclined they could equip themselves with Zopiclone and other prescription only medications and use them as they felt fit for their own use, or to drug patients.”
In 2018, a student nurse blew the whistle on the practice of drugging patients, the court heard. While working under Hudson on the ward she described how a patient had been “up and down” during the night.
Hudson’s response was: “Just give her some zopiclone.” When the student said that would not be allowed as the patient was not prescribed the drug, Hudson reportedly replied: “Well she’s got a DNAR (do not artificially resuscitate) in place so she wouldn’t be opened up if she died, or like, if it came to any harm from zopiclone.”
Read more: Stroke patients sedated and laxatives withheld for staff’s amusement and easy life, court hears
