A DUNFERMLINE care worker who falsified a string of documents has been given a two-year warning by the Scottish Social Services Council. 

Joolie Martin was employed as a team leader by Capability Scotland and was working on the Care at Home service in Dunfermline when the offences took place between March 3, 2014, and November 17, 2016.

Prior to a health and safety audit, she falsified a moving and handling equipment checks sheet, asking a colleague to falsify the monthly checks for slings, hoists, profile beds and water temperature charts to make it look like they had been done when they had not.

She also asked two members of staff to falsify moving and handling equipment checks for 2015.

Martin also recorded that a fire drill had taken place when it hadn’t and, after an allegation of neglect regarding a resident, she didn’t complete an accident or incident report form and wasn’t quick enough to tell a manager and appropriate family members,

Her fitness to practise was also deemed to be impaired when she failed to record an allegation of neglect made by a member of staff that four residents hadn’t received showers as required and, again, a manager and family members weren’t informed quickly enough about this.

She also failed to fill in an accident/incident report form when she became aware of an error with a resident’s medication.

The report by the social care watchdog said social service workers were trusted to care for the most vulnerable members of society. 

“They must protect them, insofar as possible, from harm,” it stated. “By failing to timeously report and record allegations that service users were being neglected and that medication errors had taken place, this was a failure in your duty of care as a team leader to take the appropriate action to protect service users from harm.

“The allegations are serious and placed service users at risk of harm. 

"The behaviours relating to failure to report allegations of abuse or neglect to service users, failure to advise service user family members of allegations of abuse or neglect, failure to complete a report for a medication error and failure to support staff members can all be remedied by further training.” 

The report by the SSSC said that there was a “pattern of concerning behaviour” but added factors in Martin’s favour were she had shown some insight into the matters under consideration and had a good history with them.

“You have stated that you were struggling in your job role, felt unsupported and were required to work across three different services which may have contributed to the behaviour under consideration,” the report added.

Martin was told that she must undergo further training and submit a reflective account to the SSSC addressing her failings.