Former Dewsbury nurse faces serious allegations

Ruth Caroline Baker will appear before a Nursing and Midwifery Council committee next week to answer allegations that her fitness to practise was impaired as a result of misconduct.

The committee will hold a five-day hearing at London’s Old Bailey from Monday.

Miss Baker, who was first registered as a midwife in 1991, was working as a neonatal sister at the time of the incidents.

It is alleged that she left a shift early in April 2010 when she was in charge of the unit, failed to arranged adequate care for patients in her absence and did not ensure a controlled drug was administered to a baby at the right time.

In February 2011 she is said to have failed to comply with a request from a consultant to record her involvement in the treatment and resuscitation attempts of a baby as soon as possible after that baby died.

It is alleged that she failed to properly record the care provided to a baby and her failure to make the necessary checks resulted in that baby being incorrectly labelled in March 2012.

An interim conditions of practice order was imposed on Miss Baker on October 15, 2012.

One of the conditions was that she could only work under the indirect supervision of another registered nurse or midwife on the same shift.

The order was extended on January 3 this year.

If the panel finds Miss Baker’s fitness to practice was impaired it could strike her off .

The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust, which runs Dewsbury hospital, said it no longer employed Miss Baker.