ianstone
06-08-2010, 09:36 PM
Did rogue nurse kill 20? Incompetent bosses allowed 'matron' to drug patients and rule wards
By Chris Brooke (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Chris+Brooke)
Last updated at 1:52 AM on 9th June 2010
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285128/Did-rogue-nurse-kill-20-Incompetent-bosses-allowed-matron-drug-patients-rule-wards.html)
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/08/article-0-09F01331000005DC-470_306x423.jpg Anne Grigg-Booth was charged with the murder of three elderly patients after illegally prescribing and injecting powerful painkilling drugs
An all-powerful nurse who may have murdered up to 20 patients with painkilling drugs was allowed to flout rules at will by incompetent hospital bosses, an official report revealed yesterday.
Anne Grigg-Booth intimidated colleagues and was 'effectively in charge of the hospital' during early hours when few doctors were about and target-obsessed managers had no idea what was going on.
The night nurse practitioner was charged with the murder of three elderly patients after illegally prescribing and injecting powerful painkilling drugs as if she was a qualified doctor.
But police believe she may have killed many more during her 25 years working at Airedale General Hospital in Keighley, West Yorkshire.
Grigg-Booth also faced an attempted murder charge and 13 counts of unlawfully administering poison to 12 other patients but was never brought to trial because she died from a drink and drugs overdose at her home in 2005 at the age of 52.
Management of the hospital was also condemned by the inquiry findings. A 'club culture' existed in the senior hospital ranks and protected authority figures such as Grigg-Booth from criticism.
The fear is that other members of the nursing staff may have been 'bullied' into adopting her bad habits and followed her instructions to give banned injections.
Grigg-Booth herself treated management 'with contempt' and was 'not subject to effective supervision'. Policies designed to act as safeguards were ignored and patients placed at risk as a result.
The nurse was suspended and police called in after a routine audit identified malpractice by Grigg-Booth in January 2003.
She was later charged with murdering June Driver, 67, Eva Blackburn, 75, and 96-year-old Annie Midgley. She was also accused of attempting to murder Michael Parker, 42.
However, police said these were 'specimen' offences and the extent of her total criminal behaviour could have been far greater.
Five years ago she was branded the 'Angel of Death' after being accused of being a hospital serial killer.
But the independent inquiry came to a very different conclusion.
The report concluded Grigg-Booth was 'not a Beverley Allitt' [the nurse who murdered four children in hospital in the early 1990s]. 'We think it is unlikely that she deliberately set out to harm patients,' the report stated.
Enlarge http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/08/article-1285128-09F3D9D0000005DC-392_634x447.jpg (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/08/article-1285128-09F3D9D0000005DC-392_634x447_popup.jpg)
But it added: 'She was utterly convinced of her own clinical prowess; we have no doubt that on occasions she went well beyond the boundaries of acceptable nursing practice at that time and beyond the boundaries of her own clinical understanding.'
She was recognised as a 'hard working, experienced and caring nurse who could be relied on in a crisis' yet she broke the law by prescribing 'opiates' herself without checking with doctors and broke hospital rules by giving the dangerous drugs 'intraveneously' and on the 'verbal orders' of doctors.
Although in some cases where patients died Grigg-Booth failed to complete the paperwork detailing her
actions, the inquiry found she recorded most of what she did in charts and files, suggesting she was not intent of killing patients.
Night nurse practitioners were introduced to reduce the workload of junior doctors. Grigg-Booth was the most senior and powerful of the four NNPs at Airedale. All the NNPs, as well as other doctors and nurses, misunderstood the rules and believed they had greater authority in respect of the use of painkilling drugs than they actually did.
But Grigg-Booth believed she was in control of the rules after dark. Indeed, all junior doctors on induction days were given the booklet A Guide for Staff who Work at Night which was written by Grigg-Booth herself.
An indication of her attitude towards consulting doctors can be found in the booklet. It reads: 'There are many occasions when we "cross the fine line or grey area" between nursing and medical duties, but will only do so in the interests of effective patient care.'
The offences she was charged with occurred between 2000 and 2002. By July 2002 she had become an alcoholic, the report revealed.
She also rumoured to be addicted to painkilling drugs herself.
She frequently attended the casualty unit as a patient and told the nurses to have diamorphine ready. On one occasion she even injected herself and on another her husband, also a hospital nurse, pressurised medical staff into giving her medication.
The inquiry team found a ' combination of individual and systems failure.' Two other NNPs were disciplined and downgraded, another took early retirement, a manager was sacked and another manager resigned.
They refused to given an opinion as to whether Grigg-Booth would have been convicted by a jury had she not died. Eddie Kinsella, a member of the inquiry team, said Grigg-Booth 'shouldn't be demonised' for her actions as she 'reasonably believed' she was acting legally in the way she did her job, but there was 'confusion' about what senior nurses were allowed to do.
However, he added: 'We don't diminish the gravity of what took place.'
The crop haired bully with a God complex
by MICHAEL SEAMARK
On the night shift at Airedale General, Anne Grigg-Booth was regarded as the undisputed queen of the wards by hospital staff.
Many junior nurses feared the foulmouthed, crop-haired, busy, bossy woman, management respected her toughness and few doctors would dream of arguing with her.
She intimidated some, was considered a bully by others and there were complaints that she frequently swore at work.
But all that mattered to night nurse practitioner, or modern-day 'matron' Grigg-Booth, was that everything ran smoothly in the small hours.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/08/article-0-01A89A9A0000044D-661_634x323.jpg Anne Grigg-Booth was regarded as the undisputed queen of the wards by hospital staff at Airedale General Hospital
Grigg-Booth decided what drugs patients needed and simply took the powerful painkillers she wanted and illegally administered them herself.
'She had a bit of a God complex and thought she could do anything,' said one nurse.
It was her patients that ultimately paid the price. She was charged in 2004 with the murder of three elderly women by injecting them with high doses of painkillers.
But exactly how many others died at her hands will remain a mystery. According to police, Grigg-Booth had been 'behaving out of control' and there may have been as many as 20 victims during her spree.
She died of an overdose of anti-depressants in 2005, the year before her trial, and with many possible victims cremated, finding scientific evidence to support more murder charges was impossible
ANNE GRIGG-BOOTH: A HISTORY
Detectives charged Grigg-Booth in September 2004.
The nurse was charged with murdering June Driver, 67, in July 2000; Eva Blackburn, 75, in November 2001; and 96-year-old Annie Midgley in July 2002.
She was also accused of trying to kill 42-year-old Michael Parker in June 2002.
As well as the murder and attempted murder charges, Grigg-Booth faced 13 counts of unlawfully administering poison to 12 other patients.
She was due to go on trial in April 2006, but died of an overdose aged 52 on 29 August 2005.
She had been bailed to appear before Bradford Crown Court.
Grigg-Booth had worked at Airedale General Hospital in Keighley, West Yorkshire for 25 years.
Grigg-Booth, the eldest daughter of a London policeman, was a nurse for over 30 years.
Earlier in her career she was widely regarded by colleagues as the ultimate professional, highly efficient and a stickler for the rules at work, if a 'colourful eccentric' in her spare time.
Standing a towering 6ft tall, her hair dyed in a variety of colours, in her younger days she arrived at hospital on a motorbike, wearing a silver jump suit. She joined the Airedale hospital in 1977 and wore a cape, jokingly telling people to call her 'Florence'.
The 'matron' even bought her pet parrot onto the wards, her friends called her 'Big Bird' and she was known for being a blunt speaker.
Nursing was her life - while on holiday in Northern Ireland she was among the first to tend the injured in the Omagh bombing in 1998.
At work she regarded herself as above the rules. She had an inflated sense of her own ability, and didn't attend some training sessions because she didn't think she needed to.
And at night on the quiet wards, the matron - 'utterly convinced of her own clinical prowess' - believed she carried ultimate authority. That included illegally administering morphine and other powerful painkillers.
Police were eventually alerted in January 2003 after a routine audit at the hospital revealed 'discrepancies' in drug prescription. After detectives carried out in-depth investigations into 15 of
Grigg-Booth's patients' deaths, they charged her.
She denied deliberately killing the victims. In letters to health chiefs she wrote: 'I never prescribed opiate or other drugs without discussion with a doctor.
'I took verbal orders in extreme circumstances ... if patients were dying all I wanted was to make sure they were pain free & settled & dying with dignity & with family around.
'I would not harm anybody and never end somebody's life.'
But the deaths all followed a similar pattern, said police, and none of the patients that died were 'at death's door'.
The married mother of one had separated from her husband, Paul. She had been receiving treatment for depression and was known to have a drink problem - when she turned up drunk at her local police station as part of her bail conditions, she was charged with drink-driving.
She lost her licence and was later caught stealing a bottle of whisky from a shop.
Then in August 2005 neighbours called paramedics to her rented cottage in Nelson, Lancashire, after finding her on the floor muttering incoherently.
She was taken to hospital but returned home and neighbours raised the alarm once again, the following night.
Police found the body of Grigg-Booth, an animal lover who lived alone with her cat, parrot and two lovebirds.
Her forthcoming trial was abandoned, along with any hope of discovering what went on as she trawled hospital bedsides in the dead of night.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285128/Did-rogue-nurse-kill-20-Incompetent-bosses-allowed-matron-drug-patients-rule-wards.html#ixzz0qJbrLoDD
I hope this is not the tip of the iceburg
By Chris Brooke (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Chris+Brooke)
Last updated at 1:52 AM on 9th June 2010
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285128/Did-rogue-nurse-kill-20-Incompetent-bosses-allowed-matron-drug-patients-rule-wards.html)
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/08/article-0-09F01331000005DC-470_306x423.jpg Anne Grigg-Booth was charged with the murder of three elderly patients after illegally prescribing and injecting powerful painkilling drugs
An all-powerful nurse who may have murdered up to 20 patients with painkilling drugs was allowed to flout rules at will by incompetent hospital bosses, an official report revealed yesterday.
Anne Grigg-Booth intimidated colleagues and was 'effectively in charge of the hospital' during early hours when few doctors were about and target-obsessed managers had no idea what was going on.
The night nurse practitioner was charged with the murder of three elderly patients after illegally prescribing and injecting powerful painkilling drugs as if she was a qualified doctor.
But police believe she may have killed many more during her 25 years working at Airedale General Hospital in Keighley, West Yorkshire.
Grigg-Booth also faced an attempted murder charge and 13 counts of unlawfully administering poison to 12 other patients but was never brought to trial because she died from a drink and drugs overdose at her home in 2005 at the age of 52.
Management of the hospital was also condemned by the inquiry findings. A 'club culture' existed in the senior hospital ranks and protected authority figures such as Grigg-Booth from criticism.
The fear is that other members of the nursing staff may have been 'bullied' into adopting her bad habits and followed her instructions to give banned injections.
Grigg-Booth herself treated management 'with contempt' and was 'not subject to effective supervision'. Policies designed to act as safeguards were ignored and patients placed at risk as a result.
The nurse was suspended and police called in after a routine audit identified malpractice by Grigg-Booth in January 2003.
She was later charged with murdering June Driver, 67, Eva Blackburn, 75, and 96-year-old Annie Midgley. She was also accused of attempting to murder Michael Parker, 42.
However, police said these were 'specimen' offences and the extent of her total criminal behaviour could have been far greater.
Five years ago she was branded the 'Angel of Death' after being accused of being a hospital serial killer.
But the independent inquiry came to a very different conclusion.
The report concluded Grigg-Booth was 'not a Beverley Allitt' [the nurse who murdered four children in hospital in the early 1990s]. 'We think it is unlikely that she deliberately set out to harm patients,' the report stated.
Enlarge http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/08/article-1285128-09F3D9D0000005DC-392_634x447.jpg (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/08/article-1285128-09F3D9D0000005DC-392_634x447_popup.jpg)
But it added: 'She was utterly convinced of her own clinical prowess; we have no doubt that on occasions she went well beyond the boundaries of acceptable nursing practice at that time and beyond the boundaries of her own clinical understanding.'
She was recognised as a 'hard working, experienced and caring nurse who could be relied on in a crisis' yet she broke the law by prescribing 'opiates' herself without checking with doctors and broke hospital rules by giving the dangerous drugs 'intraveneously' and on the 'verbal orders' of doctors.
Although in some cases where patients died Grigg-Booth failed to complete the paperwork detailing her
actions, the inquiry found she recorded most of what she did in charts and files, suggesting she was not intent of killing patients.
Night nurse practitioners were introduced to reduce the workload of junior doctors. Grigg-Booth was the most senior and powerful of the four NNPs at Airedale. All the NNPs, as well as other doctors and nurses, misunderstood the rules and believed they had greater authority in respect of the use of painkilling drugs than they actually did.
But Grigg-Booth believed she was in control of the rules after dark. Indeed, all junior doctors on induction days were given the booklet A Guide for Staff who Work at Night which was written by Grigg-Booth herself.
An indication of her attitude towards consulting doctors can be found in the booklet. It reads: 'There are many occasions when we "cross the fine line or grey area" between nursing and medical duties, but will only do so in the interests of effective patient care.'
The offences she was charged with occurred between 2000 and 2002. By July 2002 she had become an alcoholic, the report revealed.
She also rumoured to be addicted to painkilling drugs herself.
She frequently attended the casualty unit as a patient and told the nurses to have diamorphine ready. On one occasion she even injected herself and on another her husband, also a hospital nurse, pressurised medical staff into giving her medication.
The inquiry team found a ' combination of individual and systems failure.' Two other NNPs were disciplined and downgraded, another took early retirement, a manager was sacked and another manager resigned.
They refused to given an opinion as to whether Grigg-Booth would have been convicted by a jury had she not died. Eddie Kinsella, a member of the inquiry team, said Grigg-Booth 'shouldn't be demonised' for her actions as she 'reasonably believed' she was acting legally in the way she did her job, but there was 'confusion' about what senior nurses were allowed to do.
However, he added: 'We don't diminish the gravity of what took place.'
The crop haired bully with a God complex
by MICHAEL SEAMARK
On the night shift at Airedale General, Anne Grigg-Booth was regarded as the undisputed queen of the wards by hospital staff.
Many junior nurses feared the foulmouthed, crop-haired, busy, bossy woman, management respected her toughness and few doctors would dream of arguing with her.
She intimidated some, was considered a bully by others and there were complaints that she frequently swore at work.
But all that mattered to night nurse practitioner, or modern-day 'matron' Grigg-Booth, was that everything ran smoothly in the small hours.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/08/article-0-01A89A9A0000044D-661_634x323.jpg Anne Grigg-Booth was regarded as the undisputed queen of the wards by hospital staff at Airedale General Hospital
Grigg-Booth decided what drugs patients needed and simply took the powerful painkillers she wanted and illegally administered them herself.
'She had a bit of a God complex and thought she could do anything,' said one nurse.
It was her patients that ultimately paid the price. She was charged in 2004 with the murder of three elderly women by injecting them with high doses of painkillers.
But exactly how many others died at her hands will remain a mystery. According to police, Grigg-Booth had been 'behaving out of control' and there may have been as many as 20 victims during her spree.
She died of an overdose of anti-depressants in 2005, the year before her trial, and with many possible victims cremated, finding scientific evidence to support more murder charges was impossible
ANNE GRIGG-BOOTH: A HISTORY
Detectives charged Grigg-Booth in September 2004.
The nurse was charged with murdering June Driver, 67, in July 2000; Eva Blackburn, 75, in November 2001; and 96-year-old Annie Midgley in July 2002.
She was also accused of trying to kill 42-year-old Michael Parker in June 2002.
As well as the murder and attempted murder charges, Grigg-Booth faced 13 counts of unlawfully administering poison to 12 other patients.
She was due to go on trial in April 2006, but died of an overdose aged 52 on 29 August 2005.
She had been bailed to appear before Bradford Crown Court.
Grigg-Booth had worked at Airedale General Hospital in Keighley, West Yorkshire for 25 years.
Grigg-Booth, the eldest daughter of a London policeman, was a nurse for over 30 years.
Earlier in her career she was widely regarded by colleagues as the ultimate professional, highly efficient and a stickler for the rules at work, if a 'colourful eccentric' in her spare time.
Standing a towering 6ft tall, her hair dyed in a variety of colours, in her younger days she arrived at hospital on a motorbike, wearing a silver jump suit. She joined the Airedale hospital in 1977 and wore a cape, jokingly telling people to call her 'Florence'.
The 'matron' even bought her pet parrot onto the wards, her friends called her 'Big Bird' and she was known for being a blunt speaker.
Nursing was her life - while on holiday in Northern Ireland she was among the first to tend the injured in the Omagh bombing in 1998.
At work she regarded herself as above the rules. She had an inflated sense of her own ability, and didn't attend some training sessions because she didn't think she needed to.
And at night on the quiet wards, the matron - 'utterly convinced of her own clinical prowess' - believed she carried ultimate authority. That included illegally administering morphine and other powerful painkillers.
Police were eventually alerted in January 2003 after a routine audit at the hospital revealed 'discrepancies' in drug prescription. After detectives carried out in-depth investigations into 15 of
Grigg-Booth's patients' deaths, they charged her.
She denied deliberately killing the victims. In letters to health chiefs she wrote: 'I never prescribed opiate or other drugs without discussion with a doctor.
'I took verbal orders in extreme circumstances ... if patients were dying all I wanted was to make sure they were pain free & settled & dying with dignity & with family around.
'I would not harm anybody and never end somebody's life.'
But the deaths all followed a similar pattern, said police, and none of the patients that died were 'at death's door'.
The married mother of one had separated from her husband, Paul. She had been receiving treatment for depression and was known to have a drink problem - when she turned up drunk at her local police station as part of her bail conditions, she was charged with drink-driving.
She lost her licence and was later caught stealing a bottle of whisky from a shop.
Then in August 2005 neighbours called paramedics to her rented cottage in Nelson, Lancashire, after finding her on the floor muttering incoherently.
She was taken to hospital but returned home and neighbours raised the alarm once again, the following night.
Police found the body of Grigg-Booth, an animal lover who lived alone with her cat, parrot and two lovebirds.
Her forthcoming trial was abandoned, along with any hope of discovering what went on as she trawled hospital bedsides in the dead of night.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285128/Did-rogue-nurse-kill-20-Incompetent-bosses-allowed-matron-drug-patients-rule-wards.html#ixzz0qJbrLoDD
I hope this is not the tip of the iceburg