THE manager of a nursing home should have donned gloves and an apron to help a stricken resident, rather than attempt to deal with him with her bare hands, a nurses’ misconduct hearing was told.

Details of how registered nurse Susan Greening, then manager of the Brithdir nursing home in New Tredegar, handled the incident in January 2006 were revealed at a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) conduct and competence committee hearing in Cardiff.

The man, referred to as resident 11, had been found lying across his bed with his room in disarray shortly after 11am on a day when Alison Price, at the time an inspector with the Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales (CSIW), and a fellow inspector were at Brithdir.

There was no catheter stand, the bag was on the floor and the catheter device was “pulling”, according to a statement subsequently written by Mrs Price.

Mrs Greening, among other allegations, is charged with failing to put or ensure the resident’s catheter bag was put on a stand and with failing to maintain adequate standards of care and hygiene when changing his incontinence pad and handling the catheter, in that she did not wear gloves or an apron, and did not wash her hands before or after the procedure.

Chris Green, representing Mrs Greening, said she accepted she picked up the catheter bag and put it on the bed, and repositioned the pad to restore his dignity.

He agreed that while it is desirable hands should be washed before touching a catheter or bag, he asked Mrs Price to agree “sometimes necessity overrides this.”

But Mrs Price said: “I don’t accept that. It should be second nature to put on gloves and an apron to protect yourself and service users.

“I’m not stupid. I expect people to do something really well when we (the inspectors) are around. The fact that this happened when we were there suggests this was a habitual situation.”

Mr Green highlighted discrepancies in Mrs Price’s accounts of the incident, and she accepted there was no documentary evidence that she had challenged Mrs Greening’s version of events at a later meeting.

The committee is hearing misconduct charges against six nurses who worked at Brithdir – among several homes investigated as part of Gwent Police’s long-running Operation Jasmine – during 2004 to 2006.

Proceeding.