Nurse at Stafford Hospital asked when patients would die
The former chief nurse of a scandal-hit hospital has admitted demanding to know when patients would die and their beds would be free.
Janice Harry told a misconduct hearing: "We needed to know if we had the capacity of that bed."
The 60-year-old is accused of endangering patients by running wards on a skeleton staff when she was director of nursing at Stafford Hospital.
Mrs Harry was asked to comment on a claim the 'favourite expression' she used when discussing patients who were dying was to ask the nursing sisters whether there was 'anybody going to heaven in respect of the availability of the bed'.
"I am not sure I used those exact words, but it was a question that was asked," Mrs Harry told the Nursing and Midwifery Council panel.
"It does seem very hard but if we knew there was someone who within a period of time was known to be dying, then at the end of the day, I had no doubt that the care that the person would have would be absolutely as it should be but we needed to know if we had the capacity of the bed."
Mrs Harry denies a series of charges dating between 1998 and 2006 and related to alleged failures to ensure adequate nursing staffing levels and appropriate standards of record keeping, hygiene and cleanliness, administration of medication, provision of nutrition and fluids and patient dignity.
She has also denied allegations of bullying staff who raised problems with her.
Mrs Harry said she never heard about nurses working unpaid overtime due to staffing shortfalls or complaints about staffing levels. Harry left Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust in 2006 and retired in 2009.
The Old Bailey hearing continues today.
