A FIFE nurse has been hit with sanctions after leaving a man crying in pain in a store cupboard for two hours.

Linda Jackson, who was working as a staff nurse on Ward 6 of the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, told the patient to “shut up” before wheeling him into the cupboard where she left him without any way to call or alert other staff because he had been “making noises and disturbing other patients”.

Jackson was faced with a hearing at the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in June, where she admitted five charges and a sixth was also proven against her.

The panel heard how the man, known as Patient A, was described as lacking “full capacity” and had recently had a fall. He was prescribed morphine-based pain relief on an ‘as required’ basis and often called out, made noises, attempted to get out of bed and threw his covers off.

On the night of 1st-2nd October 2013, at around 11pm, he cried out in pain and Jackson shouted “shut up” or words to that effect.

Later that night at around 3.30am, another nurse noticed that the patient’s bed was missing and found him in the store cupboard after realising the door had been propped open with an oxygen cannister.

Jackson defended her actions by saying that she had “other patients to consider” and the noise was “keeping them awake” and refused to move the patient out of the store cupboard until around 5.30am.

She also explained to the other nurse that his moans were “behavioural and not related to pain”, as she said she had been told by the patient’s daughter that this was the case.

The panel heard how Jackson acknowledged that the consequences could have been “catastrophic”. She told the panel she recognised the very next day that she had made a “poor clinical judgement” and realised in hindsight that the store cupboard was not an appropriate environment in which to care for a patient and she would not like any of her relatives to be cared for in this manner.

Jackson was said to have been experiencing “very difficult personal circumstances” prior to, and around the time of, the incidents, over a five-week period during which she was under stress.

The panel recognised that Jackson had “clear remorse” for her actions but said they fell “well short of the conduct and standards expected of a registered nurse” and the serious nature of them amounted to misconduct.

She was said to have put the patient at “unwarranted risk of harm” and brought the profession into disrepute.

The panel also said that the public would be “horrified” by her actions and imposed a conditions of practice order for 12 months.