Accused nurses will not take the witness stand, court told
TWO nurses who are accused of causing the manslaughter by gross negligence of a patient at The Oberlands Mental Health Centre two years ago will not give evidence at their trial, the Royal Court heard yesterday.
Advocates for Naomi Prestidge, 31, and Rory McDermott, 32, said their clients would not be taking to the witness stand, as the defences closed their cases. Both defendants deny the joint charge.
Lauren Ellis, 22, died on Crevichon Ward in the early hours of 12 October 2017.
A post-mortem examination found she had died through ligature strangulation.
Miss Ellis was supposed to be checked every 15 minutes but the court had heard how six checks in a row were missed and there was a window of one hour and 42 minutes between the last one and the discovery of what had happened.
Miss Prestidge was seen on CCTV updating records of observations that were not done in the minutes after Miss Ellis was found with the ligature around her neck.
On day 14 of the trial, Advocate Mark Dunster, for Mr McDermott, read part of the transcript of what Miss Prestidge had said at a meeting with medical staff on 16 October 2017 that made part of the internal investigation.
She said she knew she should not have signed the observation log but had done it in the belief that Mr McDermott had carried out checks for the entries.
She had not known that he had been in the ‘extra care’ section when the checks were supposed to be done.
The National Medical Council policy was that one person could not sign on behalf of somebody else.
When asked why Miss Ellis’ room was the furthest away from staff, Miss Prestidge said this had been decided by a band six nurse [Miss Ellis was band five] and she had not challenged it.
She knew that Miss Ellis was at risk of self-harm but no increased risk had been pointed out to her by the previous shift when her shift took over.
She later told an HR meeting that there had been poor practice and non-adherence to policy on the ward and friends had told her that this had continued after Miss Ellis’s death.
Registered mental health nurse Richard Edgeworth was asked to compile a report for the defence.
He did not have to take to the witness stand after the prosecution had agreed it.
He said the fact that Miss Ellis had been put on level two checks would have indicated to nursing staff that any self-harm would not be with intent and it would not have reinforced with them that she was considered to be a high risk of suicide.
It was impossible to create a ward environment that was ligature-free and it had been an omission when the previous shift made no reference to the fact that Miss Ellis had tried to use the wire from her headphones to harm herself on the afternoon of her admission.
The case continues.
