A LIVERPOOL nurse was cautioned after giving a patient four times the amount of morphine prescribed.
Mary Burrows, 56, was working at the Royal Liverpool Hospital when she gave an elderly man, suffering from advanced lung cancer, 20mgs of the pain killer instead of 2.5 – 5mgs.
A Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel in London gave her a five-year caution, after a hearing on Thursday.
The caution also covers a further mistake made after Ms Burrows was told not to administer drugs by bosses at the Royal.
Seven months after the initial incident, she gave an anti-blood clotting drug to a patient eight hours earlier than it was intended, and failed to record the error.
Ms Burrows, who now works at Kensington Children’s Centre, in a non-clinical role, admitted her impairment and the mistakes made on June 13, 2005, and February 24, 2006.
The panels decision papers read: “The first error was particularly serious, in that it involved a controlled drug. The second error was aggravated by the fact that it took place at a time when the registrant was well aware that she was not to undertake single nurse drug administration.
“Her conduct on both of these occasions fell well short of the standards required of a registered nurse.”
The report points out that Ms Burrows’s current employer has praised “her genuine desire to support others” and added she does not intend to return to nursing.
