Home manager suspended after missing resident incident

The manager of a West Wales care home where an elderly resident’s disappearance triggered a police hunt has been given a nine-month work ban.

Dianna Hill, 63, former manager at Williamston Nursing Home, Milford Haven, was handed a suspension order by a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) professional panel.

The order comes into force within 28 days, the time she has to decide whether or not to lodge an appeal.

However, Mrs Hill, who did not attend the NMC’s Cardiff hearing or send legal representation, has already retired from her career.

The panel’s decision came after two days of evidence outlining allegations which were all found to be proved.

They included the case of a resident with short-term memory loss who vanished in August 2011, causing police to be called in, but who was later found in a field by her son.

Mrs Hill, appointed in February 2007, had failed to review an official resident assessment highlighting that she had a history of “wandering”.

In total she also failed to inform the authorities, or informed them late, of five incidents, which occurred in 2011 and involved the safety and well being of residents at the home.

The panel decided her misconduct was “not fundamentally incompatible with on-going registration”.

But Mrs Hill could only return to nursing by showing “remorse into her misconduct” and the incidents involving patients.

“A nine-month suspension order would give Mrs Hill sufficient opportunity to make the progress required,” the panel ruled.