Nurses hearing told of bullying culture at Stafford Hospital

A catalogue of damning claims about standards at Stafford Hospital has been heard at two Nursing and Midwifery Council misconduct hearings.

Janice Harry, the director of nursing, is accused of endangering patients by running wards on a skeleton staff.

And two nurses, Sharon Turner and Tracy White, have been found to have faked patient records to meet government four-hour A&E targets.

Harry, aged 60, denies a series of errors and oversights while working as a senior manager at the hospital between 1998 and 2006.

The joint misconduct hearing of Turner and White heard there was a 'culture of bullying' at Stafford. Turner was found to have made racially-motivated comments about colleagues and said she 'didn't care' if a patient lived or died.

Harry told her hearing the word 'nurse' in her job title was 'misleading' as she denied she had a direct role in ensuring adequate nursing services. She said: "Most of my role was strategic in nature. I provided professional advice."

She claimed to walk the wards and provide assistance to staff 'regularly' and said she even undertook 'portering duties'.

Despite her role as the most senior nurse in the trust, Harry insisted: "Nurses do have responsibility for their own actions."

The panel yesterday heard that patients in A&E would be shifted to the emergency assessment unit if their condition was not considered serious enough and there was a strict three-day limit on patients staying in the unit.

If they had not recovered sufficiently, only then would they be moved to wards, Harry told the panel.

She allegedly failed to make sure wards were kept clean and hygienic, even though part of her remit was 'infection control'.

Asked about colleagues leaving meetings in tears, Harry said: "I did not shout at nurses and neither did I use inappropriate language. As a matter of fact, I am quietly spoken but firm."

Harry stopped working for the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust in 2006 and retired in 2009.

She denies all the allegations against her.

Turner and White falsified accident and emergency discharge times to avoid missing a government goal for patients to be dealt with within four hours, the NMC panel ruled.

Whistleblower Helene Donnelly said a 'culture of fear and bullying' permeated the department during her four years there, with target statistics taken daily to the trust's executives.

The nurse said she was 'ostracised and had to endure constant bitchy comments' after pursuing complaints against Turner and White, and that Turner and White spoke 'nastily' and swore at staff who refused to change times.

White still works for the trust. Senior nursing colleague Jane Rock said a 'post mortem' was carried out by trust managers after every breach of the targets. "There were a set of managers who were driven by the same ethos because they were afraid of getting in trouble from higher up," she said.

The case against White relates to a period between March 2006 and July 2010, while Turner's charges cover two years between July 2007 October 2009.

Turner also made racially-motivated comments about doctors at the hospital and spoke about patients and staff in an 'inappropriate manner', the NMC panel ruled.

Determining the facts of the case against Turner, the panel also ruled she made racially-motivated comments about Asian junior doctors. She is reported to have said: "What have you got in your rucksack doctor, is it a bomb?" . She is also accused of calling them 'suicide bombers' or 'Osama's mate'.

She also said: 'I don't care if she lives or dies', or words to that effect, when another colleague was taken to hospital with a head injury, the panel ruled.

She and White denied all the charges against them.

Maggie Oldham, chief executive at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Tracy White is still employed by the trust and works as a clinical site manager.

"We will need to take some time to consider the Nursing and Midwifery Council panel's findings once they announce their decisions.

"Sharon Turner is no longer employed by the trust. She left her emergency department sister post in September 2009."

The hearings at the Old Bailey, in London,continue today. The nurses are due to find out their fate later this week.