Social worker falsified records to hide 'extremely serious' misconduct

Elaine Lillian McDowell has been removed from the Social Work England register

A Bristol City Council social worker who tried to falsify records to hide a trail of misconduct has been barred from the profession.

A panel found that Elaine Lillian McDowell did a number of actions which "seriously" breached professional standards.

She moved a vulnerable woman to a full-time nursing home, bypassing safety checks, and tried to get her bank PIN.

Ms McDowell also let her own relatives be paid for odd jobs.

She has been removed from the Social Work England register.

The unnecessary emergency transfer bypassed the necessary usual checks and took the vulnerable woman from an extra care housing flat to a full-time nursing home that was not in the resident's interests and compromised her "dignity", reports The Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The move happened so suddenly and to the surprise of care managers at Bluebell Gardens housing complex in Stockwood, where the woman was happy, that she was not even allowed to finish the meal she was eating, the fitness-to-practice hearing was told.

The panel's report said that between June 2018 and February 2019 Ms McDowell visited the woman - who has since died - "far more frequently" than would be expected for an employee in the council's discharge-to-assess team, which makes short-term interventions.

It ruled that the social worker allowed members of her own family to get paid by the woman, named only as Service User 1 (SU1), to provide support.

This included Ms McDowell's son or cousin moving furniture to Bluebell Gardens, her husband to put up curtains and her daughter to help with the woman's shopping, for which she received £12 an hour in cash, the report said.

Ms McDowell lied to care staff when challenged about the fact that her daughter was one of the people giving the woman support, getting "angry" and denying it, before orchestrating the move out of the housing scheme to Hartcliffe Nursing Home just two days later, the report said.

According to care staff the social worker was "looking worried" on 20 February 2019 and said "it's not working here" for the resident. Within 20 minutes she had removed the woman from the complex saying her boss had approved the transfer without the normal meeting between carers and family to discuss options.

The social worker then falsely recorded in the case notes that a capacity assessment was completed and the woman's relatives had agreed to the move, which they had not and in fact found the placement "strange".

The panel upheld an allegation that the then-council employee had asked the woman's relative for her PIN as she was "concerned about an electricity bill" but they refused to give it after finding nothing unusual in her bank statement.

The report said: "Ms McDowell had also seriously breached appropriate professional boundaries."

It added the "dishonesty could not be regarded as an isolated, momentary lapse".

The panel concluded that Ms McDowell, who did not attend the week-long hearing earlier this month and was not represented, had "developed little, if any, insight into the significance of her misconduct and that the risk of repetition was high".

The ruling said she brought the profession into disrepute and breached a number of its "fundamental tenets" by placing "her own interests before the interests of SU1" and acting dishonestly.

"Ms McDowell's misconduct was extremely serious in itself," it said.

It said the misconduct happened more than three years ago but Miss McDowell had resigned from her employment without taking part in a council inquiry and there was no evidence of remorse.

"The panel decided that a removal order is the only outcome which is sufficient to protect the public, maintain confidence in the profession and maintain proper professional standards for social workers in England," it added.

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