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A children’s nurse struck off for forging paperwork, naming a computer file ‘spastics’ and failing to properly treat a cancer sufferer is teaching nursing and health studies to youngsters at Canterbury College.
Matthew Griffith-Davies, who is in his 40s, quit his job at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital in January 2010 when he was hauled before the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for a catalogue of workplace offences.
The college hired Mr Griffith-Davies when it was unaware of the NMC case but continues to employ him even though managers learned of the proceedings last year.
The hearing, last September, was told he had labelled one of the folders on his computer ‘spastics’ and had forged a number of official certificates while working as a lead nurse in Community Children’s Nursing at the hospital in Ethelbert Road, where he worked between early 2009 and January 2010, when he quit.
It was also told he injected a cancer patient with drugs as the youngster screamed, failed to order chemotherapy for another cancer patient and took more than two days to check the results of a blood test.
This week it emerged he lectures at the college in New Dover Road on ‘care needs’, ‘rights and responsibilities’, ‘personal care’ and ‘healthy eating’.
Alarmed colleagues of Mr Griffith-Davies, who lives in Clare Road, Whitstable, fretted about his employment at a meeting of the health and social care section on November 9, 2012 – two months after it was reported in our sister paper, the Kentish Gazette.
Minutes of the meeting show there were concerns about the outcome of the NMC hearing, about Mr Griffith-Davies’ overall standard of work and about what they should tell students and their parents about him.
They read: “The team are very uncomfortable with him continue [sic] to teach as this raises extreme ethical issue [sic] with him teaching best practice of nursing when 21 counts of gross mid-conduct has [sic] been proved against him.
“The team are extremely unhappy that they have received no official and guidelines [sic] from the management as what to say to the students, parents and staff.
“The team are very upset that there was no feedback or discussion prior to him coming back and are having to continue to work with him.
"There are clear communication problems with Matt Griffiths-Davis [sic], registers are not being completed and his overall performance needs to be questioned.”
The minutes add that Mr Griffith-Davies’ “sickness levels are still bad and do regularly occur on a Monday”.
“(Griffith-Davies) made huge fundamental mistakes which you would not expect from any band of nurse. He was way below the standard of any working nurse” - Griffith-Davies' ex-boss Kerry-Anne Hatcher
Canterbury College later published another set of minutes for the meeting – in which all the references to Mr Griffith-Davies had been removed.
Mr Griffith-Davies was asked to attend the health and social care section meeting in November last year but failed to go.
Neither did he attend the Nursing and Midwifery Council for the conduct and competence committee hearing in September last year.
At the hearing, his boss Kerry-Anne Hatcher said: “Matthew failed to reach the standards expected of a nurse.
“He made huge fundamental mistakes which you would not expect from any band of nurse. He was way below the standard of any working nurse.”
Mr Griffith-Davies was subsequently struck off the list of registered nurses.
The college says it intends to allow Mr Griffith-Davies’ employment to continue.
Spokesman Richard Roberts said: “The college reviewed the employment of Mr Griffith-Davies in September 2012, carefully examining the findings of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and concluded that the substantiated allegations related solely to medical practice.
“Mr Griffith-Davies has an extensive knowledge of the subjects that he teaches at the college and does not teach medical practice.
"The college has concluded that Mr Griffith-Davies is fit to teach. All of our staff undergo the statutory pre-employment assessments and checks as part of the pre-employment process.”
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