Hospital worker struck off after falling asleep during operation
Prosper Johnson ‘provided nothing to demonstrate any insight or any interest in or willingness to resolve matters’
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Your support makes all the difference.A hospital worker has been struck off after he fell asleep during an operation at a hospital in Devon.
Prosper Johnson had been employed as an operating department practitioner at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth when he was spotted nodding off during a procedure in the vascular theatre.
The incident in 2017, and a separate case when the agency worker was said to have incorrectly set up an arterial line while working at Northampton General Hospital, led to his dismissal.
A tribunal concluded that Mr Johnson, who started work with ID Medical Agency in 2014, had not shown “any interest in or willingness to resolve matters”.
While working at Derriford Hospital on 9 June 2017, he was accused of not carrying out observations on his patient and of falling asleep during the same patient’s procedure.
Then in August 2017 while working at Northampton General Hospital, he was found to have set up an arterial line with intravenous fluid rather than heparinised saline.
The panel said he had been struck off after having “provided nothing to demonstrate any insight or any interest in or willingness to resolve matters”.
“The Panel considered that the findings are serious but they are remediable,” the report said.
“However, there is no evidence that the registrant is willing or able to resolve or remedy his failings.
“He has been given a clear indication from previous panels about the steps he should take and the information he should provide. He has not done so, and that is his choice.”
A spokesperson for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust said: “Mr Johnson was a member of agency staff and not a direct employee of the Trust.
“We submitted a complaint to the agency and assisted with their enquiries of the management of their staff.”
The Independent contacted Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust for comment.