A STAFF nurse agreed she left no guidance to the night shift who took over from her, the second day of a Fatal Accident Inquiry into the death of a woman at the city's Western General Hospital has heard.
Claire Smith, 31, was in charge of the Oncology Ward in which Marlene Wightman was admitted on March 22, 2006, after having a breast cancer operation.
Mrs Wightman, 49, died in the early hours the next day.
In previous evidence, Miss Smith told
the court that the hospital had been short-staffed that day and it had been stressful. In filling in patient-care charts, she admitted that she might have got the timings of examinations wrong, but claimed that all the readings of blood pressure and pulse rate were correct.
Asked by a solicitor acting for the family, Miss Smith agreed it was critical for nursing staff to have up-to-date information about a patient.
Questioned about the lack of entries on the medical charts, she admitted she had not filled them in.
"I planned to do them, but I never did," she said.
"You left no guidance for the staff coming on after you?" she was asked.
"No" she replied.
Asked why the charts were there, Miss Smith said: "To alert nurses to any situation which might arise".
When asked, if with hindsight, she would have done something different on the afternoon of March 22, Nurse Smith said: "It is difficult to answer that".
The inquiry continues.
The full article contains 261 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
