Nurse switched off patient's life support by mistake

An agency nurse who was filmed turning off a patient's life support machine before making a bungled attempt to resuscitate the man has been suspended pending an investigation, it was reported today.

Jamie Merrett, a 37-year-old tetraplegic patient, suffered brain damage when his ventilator was switched off by mistake at his home in Devizes, Wiltshire last year.

Video footage of the incident, passed to the BBC, shows the moment a nurse, who was working for agency Ambition 24hours on behalf of the NHS, turned off the machine. "What have you done?" a colleague is seen to ask. "Switched this off," replies the nurse, who is named as Violetta Aylward, pointing at the ventilator.

Merrett was reported to have been aware of what was going on but was unable to alert the nurse to the mistake. He can be heard on the film clicking his tongue as a warning. The video camera, which was installed at Merrett's suggestion because of concerns about his care, then shows Aylward's attempts to revive him with a resuscitation bag, but she applies it in the wrong place.

The bag was eventually applied correctly by paramedics and Merrett's life support machine was turned back on 21 minutes after being switched off.

Merrett's sister, Karen Reynolds, told the BBC that his mental age dropped to that of a young child after the incident. "He doesn't have a life now," she said.

Before the incident Merrett, who was left paralysed by a road accident in 2002, was able to talk, use a computer and a wheelchair.

Patient campaigners today condemned the incident as an "appalling lapse in care" which highlighted failed attempts to improve nurses' training and a lack of accountability.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council has suspended Aylward while the incident is investigated.

The BBC said a leaked report by Wiltshire social services concluded Ambition 24hours was aware it was required to supply a nurse with training in the use of a ventilator, but the company did not have adequate systems in place to check what training their staff had received.

Ambition 24hours said it could not discuss the matter while its own investigation was being carried out. The NHS Wiltshire primary care trust said it was restricted in what it could say because of likely legal action. In a statement it said: "The PCT has investigated the incident in January 2009 when the patient's ventilator care was compromised. We have apologised to the patient and his family for this and have put in place a series of actions to ensure that such an event will not occur again either for this patient or others."

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of The Patients Association, said: "The response every time is lessons will be learned, but if lessons are being learned then why do the same mistakes get made? The NHS has been warned repeatedly about ensuring the staff it hires, agency or otherwise, are suitably trained to look after their patients and we have campaigned for many years for an NHS that listens to its patients' concerns.

"To think that this person was so worried that they installed a camera in their own home, but that their concerns were apparently ignored – it's outrageous.

"Who will be held to account for this? Or will managers walk away unscathed yet again, even though a life has been ruined?"• Merrett's story is featured in Inside Out on BBC1 at 7.30pm today.

This article is courtesy of theguardian.