Nurse who was drunk on duty must wait for verdict on striking off

A NURSE was so drunk at work she bumped into walls and failed to give patients medication and food, according to evidence heard by a discipline panel.

Joy Holmes, 45, kept a hip flask in her bag and started a hate campaign against a colleague who reported her, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) was told.

But Holmes, who has since been sacked, has been told she will have to wait to find out her fate after the panel deliberated for three days but ran out of time.

The NMC panel heard Holmes did not give medicines to patients at the Amethyst Care Home in Rossington, Doncaster, after thinking she had lost the keys to the drugs cupboard.

When they were found on her desk the nurse was so intoxicated that she could not get the key in the lock, leading colleagues to call managers during their shift on January 15, 2006.

Manager Sue Seale said: “I told her she was not fit to be at work. Before she left she went to get her bag and then I saw there was a flask in her bag.”

Holmes was called to a disciplinary meeting on January 19 where she was dismissed. There she discovered care assistant Julie Randles had reported her.

The panel said this sparked Holmes to start a campaign of “antagonistic and abusive behaviour” which included physical threats.

Holmes, who lives in Doncaster, was further found to have been dishonest when she lied about her dismissal on an application form for a new job at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in June 2006.

Holmes, who did not attend the London hearing, could be struck off if the panel find her guilty of misconduct.

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