Nurse is struck off for trying to kill

Oct 24 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

A NURSE who tried to kill two elderly patients was struck off yesterday, the Nursing and Midwifery Council revealed.

Barbara Salisbury was jailed for five years in July, 2004, for two counts of attempted murder, committed while she was working at Leighton Hospital, in Crewe, Cheshire.

A Professional Conduct Committee has now found her guilty of two counts of misconduct and removed her name from the register.

The panel chairwoman Ms Gill Barker said Salisbury had committed a "terrible crime'' when her duty was to protect vulnerable patients.

She said: "The committee has decided to remove the respondent’s name from the register with immediate effect."

"Our reasons are that attempting to murder two defenceless patients was such a serious crime that no lesser sanction would be appropriate."

Salisbury injected two elderly patients with diamorphine to hasten their deaths and clear beds on her ward, the court was told.

In March, 2002, the ward sister gave the drug to 88-year-old May Taylor when she didn’t need it, the court found.

Only weeks earlier, she gave 92-year-old Frank Owen, who had dementia, diamorphine for which the court found there was "no justification at all" .

She also told two junior hospital staff to lie Mr Owen down flat so his lungs would fill up and he would die.

David Glendinning for the Nursing and Midwifery Council read into the record the comments of Mr Justice Pitchford.

He told Chester Crown Court: "Your duty and your trust was one of care towards your patients and under the direction of the doctors the respect for and the preservation of human life.

"The jury has found that in the case of two elderly patients who were nearing their end you broke that duty and abused that trust by attempting to hasten their deaths."

Salisbury was not present at the hearing and was not represented.