A SENIOR nurse who “didn’t appear to have insight” into how to treat patients, ten years after qualifying has been suspended.

An inquiry found that Filomena Divinagracia lacked basic nursing skills and put patients at risk of harm over five months while working at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

Senior staff said the staff nurse had a “caring nature” but they weren’t confident she could work unsupervised.

Ms Divinagracia, who qualified in 2005, made repeated blunders in a number of areas including patient diagnosis, infection control and safe administration of medication.

Senior staff, who were supervising her, said: “Has a basic knowledge about care/needs/condition/diagnosis.

“Needs to be prompted to initiate care that is not within the normal routine.”

The nurse was referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde on February 25 last year.

One witness said:”...she was very good at basic care but in relation to registered nurse care she just didn’t

appear to have the insight.

“There were continual small things that potentially indicated that some quite serious harm could occur if she was allowed to practice unsupervised as a Band 5.”

The nurse was issued with a deadline to improve with intensive support from senior staff but failed to meet the standards and was told she would be dismissed or downgraded.

She then went on long-term sick leave and failed to respond to inquiries about her fitness to practice.

An inquiry by the NMC found all the charges against the nurse proved from July 2015 to November 5 2015.

It found: “All of the acts found proved are where Miss Divinagracia has demonstrated a lack of competence in the most basic skills required of every registered nurse.

“The errors demonstrated by the charges occurred at time that she had been working as a registered nurse for

at least 10 years and was very well supported by her employers, yet she still failed to satisfactorily complete

the various objectives the Hospital set her.”

She was suspended for a year, which will follow an interim suspension of 18 months.