A nurse who left a sick patient unattended for hours before they died then lied to cover her tracks has been struck off.

Moora Mamabolo was a nurse at St Helier Hospital when she discovered a patient had no pulse in October 2011. Despite the patient's critical condition, Mamabolo did not try to resuscitate them or call the hospital's 'crash team', used in emergencies.

An investigation revealed Mamabolo failed to carry out routine checks on the patient for hours before their death but tried to falsify records to show she had.

Mamabolo was sacked last year and has now been struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) after it concluded her actions "fell seriously short of the conduct and standards reasonable expected of a nurse" at a hearing on Friday, July 19.

The conclusion was based on evidence supplied by doctors working with her who told the hearing nurses are instructed to call the emergency crash team if a patient has no pulse. When Mamabolo found the patient without a pulse, rather than ringing the bedside alarm to call the crash team and starting resuscitation, she left the patient, called a surgical doctor and said "my patient is not well". The panel concluded the decision caused "a significant delay when she should have called the crash team immediately".

Mamabolo claimed she found her patient with a low pulse and started resuscitation but a doctor's expert opinion was that the patient had been dead for at least an hour before the alarm was raised.   

The patient died in the early hours of October 27. The patients records show Mamabolo did not check on them at all after 6.30pm the previous evening when she should have been checking at regular intervals. She also claimed on records she had administered medicine to the patient in the hours before their death when she had not.

The hearing concluded: "The panel believes Ms Mamabolo's actions have demonstrated a serious departure from the fundamental tenets of the profession. Public confidence in the nursing profession, and the NMC as its regulator, would be undermined were the panel not to impose a striking-off order."