A 91-YEAR-OLD grandmother would not have been killed by a lethal dose of drugs had nurses followed intensive care protocols, an inquest heard yesterday.

The elderly patient died after a student nurse gave her an overdose of potassium chloride.

Rebecca Riley gave Edna Alker the drugs while she was recovering from a hernia operation at Whiston Hospital. Mrs Alker had only been transferred there from Wigan because her daughter worked at the Knowsley hospital.

The potassium should have been administered slowly at around 5ml an hour using a pump. But Ms Riley, who was a week from finishing a nurs-ing course with Liverpool John Moores University, injected most of a 20ml syringe into Mrs Alker in one go.

The inquest was told Whiston’s High Dependency Unit (HDU) nurses frequently ignored the protocol for injecting potassium. They are supposed to use 50ml syringes, but instead use smaller 20ml ones.

Dr Robin MacMillan, med-ical director for St Helens and Knowsley Health Care Trust, told the inquest the large dose would not have been given if the protocols were stuck to.

Drawing up the deadly dose of potassium chloride in a 20ml syringe, he said, would have indicated to Ms Riley that it was “appropriate” to be given in one go.

Dr MacMillan, who wrote the protocol in the mid-90s, said: “I think it would have been avoided if a 50ml would have been used.

“The reality is a 50ml syringe is a very large syringe – you need two hands to empty it... Had the liquid been in a 50ml syringe, I don’t think this would have happened. It may have been given at a different rate through a pump.

“I was conscious of that very rapidly after the event took place.”

The Bootle Town Hall inquest also heard from nurses who worked in the HDU and adjoining intensive care unit (ICU).

Dr Gill Edwards, Mrs Alker’s daughter, broke down sobbing as ICU sister Jacqueline Barrett recalled the patient’s final hours in September 2003.

Nurse Sarah Cordon also described to the coroner the moment sister Karen Edwardson and Dr Charlene Grassman realised what had happened.

She said: “Together with Karen, I got up and went immediately to the bed space.

“As I got to the bed space Dr Grassman said something like ‘Oh my God she’s had potassium’.

“Rebecca looked shocked as if she didn’t know what had happened.

“Karen then said ‘You did put it in the pump at 5ml per hour, didn’t you?’ Rachel said ‘No, I just gave it to her’.”

The inquest continues.

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