Healthcare worker accused of illegally sedating stroke patients at Blackpool Victoria Hospital denies charges

A healthcare worker who told a colleague “yeah, sedation we love it” has denied she agreed to unlawfully put stroke unit patients to sleep.

WhatsApp messages between Catherine Hudson, 54, and Charlotte Wilmot, 48, were uncovered after a probe was launched into alleged misconduct on the unit at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

A student nurse on a work placement told authorities she saw Hudson give unprescribed Zopiclone, a sleeping pill, to a patient in November 2018, Preston Crown Court has heard.

Prosecutors say messages between Hudson, an experienced Band 5 registered nurse, and Wilmot a Band 4 assistant practitioner, went on to reveal a “culture of abuse” – with patients drugged for their “own amusement” and an “easy life”.

On Thursday, Peter Wright KC, cross-examining Wilmot, took the defendant through some of the message exchanges.

In May 2016, in response to Hudson suggesting the sedation of a patient, Wilmot replied: “Ha ha yeah sedation we love it.”

Mr Wright asked: “Why are you saying that?”

Wilmot said: “It’s just a general comment and a reply to what she had said before. None of it taken literally.”

Mr Wright said: “I am going to suggest it is to be taken literally because you and Catherine Hudson together had agreed to sedate, hadn’t you? “

“No,” replied Wilmot.

In an exchange about another patient, Hudson wrote: “I’m going to kill bed 5 xxx”

Wilmot replied: “Pmsl (pissing myself laughing) well tonight sedate him to high heaven lol.”

Hudson later wrote: “I’ve just sedated him lol lol he was gearing up to start.”

Wilmot said: “Pmsl (tablets and hypodermic needle emojis) Praise the lord.”

Mr Wright said: “You were encouraging her to sedate to high heaven?”

Wilmot said: “No I was not encouraging. It was just conversation. I didn’t think she was ever going to do that. I didn’t think actually anything was happening.”

Mr Wright said: “Any question of sedation was always for the benefit of staff or as revenge for the behaviour of patients, you agree or disagree?”

Wilmot replied: “I disagree.”

Speaking about a “profoundly unwell” female patient who had thrown a beaker of orange juice in her direction, Wilmot messaged Hudson: “Very f****** annoying. Give her the best sleep she ever had.”

Mr Wright asked: “What would be the best sleep she ever had?”

Wilmot said: “If she was asleep all night.”

Mr Wright said: “How would you achieve the best sleep?

Wilmot said: “Not sure really, It’s all just banter really.

“It’s just the way I felt at the time. I was angry and upset that I couldn’t look after my patients to the best of my abilities.

“It’s a medical profession, it’s the type of thing you joke about. Not that it looks like joking. It’s awful.”

Jurors heard that Hudson messaged Wilmot about another female patient who was “profoundly brain damaged” in which she wrote: “What’s bed 29 been doing today pmsfl. Not a f****** lot I bet!! Seeing as I sedated her on sat and sun lol.”

Wilmot replies: “Yeahhhh I knew it, everything you gave her has started working today!!!! Made for a nice day though, it ain’t been bad lol.”

Mr Wright said: “That was the motivation for sedation, it made for a nice day?”

“No,” replied Wilmot.

Mr Wright said: “The sedation of difficult or demanding patients by you encouraging the nurse who had the wherewithal to do it and an agreement with the nurse to do it if the opportunity arose?”

“No,” said Wilmot.

Jurors have heard that Wilmot has pleaded guilty to numerous offences of conspiring with Hudson to steal antibiotics from the unit.

Wilmot, who was dismissed by her employers in 2020, said she had not been qualified to administer medications.

She had never given sleeping tablets to patients for an “easy life” or witnessed anyone else doing so, she said.

Asked by her barrister Imran Shafi KC about her co-defendant, she said: “I have always thought that Cathy was really good at her job. She was always a really conscientious nurse, really good with her patients, nothing untoward whatsoever.

“She has got a big personality. She exaggerates things a lot mainly for the effect, that’s how she was. She would say things that would shock people.”

On her own approach to the job, she said: “I worked hard. I was never off sick and I looked after my patients to the best of my ability. I cared about my patients. “

She admitted she did not enjoy the job all the time.

Wilmot said: “ I was just under pressure, we were not really able to look after the patients to the best you could because of the circumstances, the understaffing.”

Hudson, of Coriander Close, Blackpool, denies ill-treating four patients by unlawfully sedating them. She has admitted a number of theft offences but has pleaded not guilty to an offence of stealing Mebeverine, a medicine.

Wilmot, of Bowland Crescent, Blackpool, denies encouraging Hudson to sedate one of those patients.

Both defendants have also pleaded not guilty to conspiring to ill-treat another patient.

The alleged ill-treatment offences are said to have taken place between February 2017 and November 2018.