A nurse who drugged patients on a hospital stroke unit for an “easy life” and to “exercise contemptuous power” has been jailed for seven years and two months.
Catherine Hudson illegally sedated two patients at Blackpool Victoria hospital and conspired with a junior colleague, Charlotte Wilmot, 48, to sedate a third.
Police were alerted by hospital chiefs in November 2018 after a student nurse on a work placement said Hudson, 54, suggested administering unprescribed zopiclone, a sleeping pill, to an elderly patient, Aileen Scott.
The whistleblower was further troubled when Hudson commented: “Well, she’s got a DNAR [do not attempt resuscitation order] in place so she wouldn’t be opened up if she died or like if it came to any harm.”
She was said to be “shocked” when Hudson then took a strip of zopiclone from her tunic pocket and administered the sedative.
Zopiclone – a class C controlled drug – was potentially life-threatening if given inappropriately to acutely unwell patients, Preston crown court heard.
Wilmot, who was also found guilty of encouraging the “lead offender” Hudson to ill-treat another patient in her care, was imprisoned for three years.
Judge Altham, honorary recorder of Preston, said: “The offences of ill-treatment were committed by these defendants whose duty was to protect and care for them. The patients were as vulnerable as anyone could be. These defendants exploited them for an easy shift, for amusement and to exercise contemptuous power over them.”
He said the whistleblowing nurse, who the prosecution had requested not be named, should be commended for her actions. He said: “It was only as a result of her courage and sense of public duty that what was happening on the ward was exposed and stopped.”
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