A NURSE who said a Wye Valley care home resident with dementia did not need a birthday cake, and who shouted at "elderly and vulnerable" patients, has been struck off.

Rossitsa Petkova had worked for 15 years as a registered nurse at dementia care facility Castleford House Nursing Home in Tutshill near Chepstow, a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Fitness to Practise hearing was told.

She denied misconduct at the home between January and October 2023, and claimed colleagues had made “pointless and childish complaints".

But the panel found eight allegations proven and that her actions were "fundamentally incompatible” with remaining on the register.

In a statement to the hearing, care home kitchen assistant Melanie Corfield said they had made a birthday cake for a resident, as normally happened.

She said: "He [the resident] was in bed, so I asked Rossi what she would like me to do with the cake.

"She told me that I have to remember he doesn't have capacity, that he wouldn't even know it was his birthday and to pretty much not make a big thing of it.

"I replied, 'It's not the fact that he hasn't got capacity, this is his birthday.

"And to me, everybody deserves a birthday, dementia or not, so we will get one of the girls to take it up' and Rossi said, 'Or if not, we can eat the cake'."

The panel also heard claims that Petkova told another resident to eat their dinner, or their daughter wouldn't be able to visit, and had pushed another woman with dementia into an armchair.

Kitchen assistant Ann Baker told the NMC about the latter incident: “I heard Mrs Petkova shouting things such as “sit down, stop moving around, sit in your chair, why are you up and moving?"

She saw her use force on the 'frail' woman “pushing their shoulders back into the chair to make her sit down".

The resident "looked stunned" and "knew something had happened but did not know what or why".

Other proven allegations of poor treatment included shouting at one resident to ‘shut up’, telling another it was their fault when they dropped a beaker on the floor, and telling a third she would put them on the floor

She also shouted at a colleague for giving a resident marmalade on toast for breakfast.

Petkova's legal representative claimed there had been an ‘inherent bias’ in the Fitness to Practice hearing alongside "fraud, malice, and unreliable evidence" and submitted that the panel should recuse itself.

But the three members refused the application and struck Petkova off "to mark the importance of maintaining public confidence in the profession and to send to the public and the profession a clear message about the standard of behaviour required of a registered nurse".

It said Petkova had displayed a "reprehensible and dismissive attitude" towards the NMC, and had tried to blame others.

Her "abuse and wide-ranging disregard for the wellbeing of vulnerable patients in her care" meant she had to be banned for the safety of the public, it ruled.

Six other charges against her were dismissed.