By James Simons-
A social worker has been suspended for 12 months for misconduct, after it came to light that she kept 82 confidential documents in an unlocked locker.
The unnamed social worker, was also found by an Health and Care Professions Council conduct and competence committee panel to have failed to undertake “crucial assessments and complete records adequately in order to ensure service users and the public were appropriately protected from harm”.
The panel concluded that she had “breached a fundamental tenet of the social work profession”. The panel added that
“She also failed to take timely action and breached the right of service users to confidentiality,” “Significant risk of harm was caused to service users, and the public in general by these breaches because, given the standard of record keeping and the methods of used to keep records, service providers had insufficient and inaccurate information upon which to base decisions for the provision of safe and effective care, in order to protect service users and the wider public from harm.” This constituted a serious level of misconduct for which the social worker had to be suspended.
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CREDIBILITY
Despite the finding of confidential documents in an unlocked locker, the social worker disputed being responsible for how the documents got there. She was clearly trying to evade suspension for her misconduct.
The investigative panel said they found her explanations “lacking in credibility”.
Her suggestion that the documents may have been placed there during an office move when she was off sick was dismissed as untrue. A statement from the panel read:
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“However, upon closer enquiry, it became clear that the office move took place in 2012, approximately one year before the documents were found. During the intervening period, the registrant had had extensive and exclusive use of the locker herself.
“Indeed the documents were found amongst her own personal effects. In these circumstances, the panel determined that the only plausible explanation was that the registrant had placed the documents into her locker herself and had kept them there.”
Further criticism by the panel was made in reference to a “wholly inadequate” reference to a service user’s mental capacity in a care plan.
“At this stage the service user was known to have some level of dementia. These matters required explanation in the care plan, for example, under the section entitled ‘Physical and Mental Health’,” the panel stated. What is unclear is why her dementia is not seen to mitigate any misconduct of hers. Clearly, the panel do not consider the level of dementia she claimed serious enough to clear her of misconduct.
CONTRIBUTING FACTORS
The social worker highlighted “contributing factors” to the failings in order to mitigate her offence.
Domestic and family matters were raised in this respect, after which she returned to work full time to an increased and challenging caseload.”
A university course she also embarked on as part of efforts to qualify as an approved mental health professional, was a contributing factor presented by the social worker, one she expected to reduce her caseload, but which did not. The panel stated:
“The registrant highlighted a number of significant personal difficulties and challenges, including matters of health. The combination of these factors, the registrant believed, led directly to her failing behind at work.”
She accepted that she failed to recognise her ill health was having an impact on her work.
“She is clearly a very caring individual and she said she was appalled at how bad she let things get and would not let it happen again. Whilst she had not thought specifically about a return to social work she did not rule out a return to it in the future,” the panel said.
However, she was guilty of misconduct and failed to demonstrate “adequate recognition and insight into her shortcomings”, and she continued to assert her assessments and record keeping were adequate when they were not.
The panel said it was still possible for her to return to practice, and concluded a 12-month suspension order was the right sanction.
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