Nurse Who Tried To Kill Two Patients Is Struck Off

A nurse, formerly of North Wales, who tried to kill two elderly patients was yesterday struck off.

Barbara Salisbury, who used to live in Pontybodkin, Flintshire, was jailed for five years in July 2004 for two counts of attempted murder, committed while she was working at Leighton Hospital in Crewe, Cheshire.

Yesterday, a panel of the Nursing and Midwifery Council found her guilty of two counts of misconduct and removed her name from their register.

The panel chairwoman Gill Barker said Salisbury had committed a “terrible crime”.

She said: “The committee has decided to remove the respondent’s name from the register with immediate effect.

“Our reasons are that attempting to murder two defenceless patients was such a serious crime that no lesser sanction would be appropriate.”

Salisbury injected two elderly patients with diamorphine to hasten their deaths and clear beds on her ward, Chester Crown Court was told.

In March 2002, the ward sister gave the drug to 88-year-old May Taylor when she didn’t need it, the court found.

Only weeks earlier, she gave 92-year-old Frank Owen, who had dementia, diamorphine for which the court found there was “no justification at all”.

She also told two junior hospital staff to lie Mr Owen down flat so his lungs would fill up and he would die.

David Glendinning, for the Nursing and Midwifery Council, read into the record the comments of Mr Justice Pitchford.

He told Chester Crown Court: “Your duty and your trust was one of care towards your patients.

“The jury has found that in the case of two elderly patients who were nearing their end you broke that duty and abused that trust by attempting to hasten their deaths.”

Salisbury was not present at the hearing and was not represented.