25 October 2010 Last updated at 00:25

Tetraplegic man's life support 'turned off by mistake'

Nurse Violetta Aylward was captured on film accidentally switching off her patient's ventilator, leaving him brain-damaged.

An agency nurse working for the NHS was filmed switching off her patient's life support machine by mistake.

Tetraplegic Jamie Merrett, 37, had a bedside camera set up at his home in Wiltshire, after becoming concerned about the care he was receiving.
Within days, it captured the moment Violetta Aylward switched off the ventilator, leaving him brain-damaged.

Ambition 24hours, which supplied her, said it could not comment as an internal investigation was continuing.

A confidential report by Wiltshire social services into the incident - leaked to the BBC's Inside Out programme - concluded the agency was fully aware it was required to supply a nurse with training in the use of a ventilator, but the company did not have adequate systems in place to check what training their staff had received.
Mr Merrett, from Devizes, has been cared for at home on a life-support machine since 2002 after being left paralysed from the neck downwards following a road accident.

Despite being tetraplegic, Mr Merrett was able to use a wheelchair and a voice-activated computer

Despite his disabilities, he was able to talk, use a wheelchair and operate a computer using voice-activated technology.
His sister Karren Reynolds said he had become increasingly worried about serious errors involving nurses operating his ventilator, but claimed that health bosses did not act on e-mails of concern which he sent them.
In January 2009, he arranged to have a camera installed in his room. A few days later, the ventilator was switched off.
After 21 minutes, the machine was eventually restarted by paramedics but by then Mr Merrett had suffered serious brain damage.
Legal action
Ms Reynolds, who is considering legal action, said his level of understanding had dropped to that of a young child.
"His life is completely changed. He doesn't have a life now," she said.
"He has an existence but it's nowhere near what it was before. He is very brain damaged compared to what he was before. He was a highly intelligent man and you could have long in-depth conversations with him and now it tends to be more simplistic."

A review found the firm that supplied Ms Aylward did not have adequate systems to check staff training

The solicitor acting for Mr Merrett, Seamus Edney of SJ Edney in Swindon, said: "In my experience, this is the worst case of negligence on the part of a nurse.
"No-one has come forward to make any admission, so now almost two years after the event we are trying to get someone to admit liability for what has happened."
The NHS Wiltshire Primary Care Trust said in a statement: "[We have] put in place a series of actions to ensure that such an event will not occur again either for this patient or others. The incident is the subject of likely litigation so the PCT is restricted in what further it may say in public."
Ms Aylward has been suspended while the incident is investigated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Their guidelines say a nurse should work within their level of competence and have the skills to undertake whatever care they are delivering.
Ms Aylward, who is from Reading, has not responded to requests for an interview.
The programme will be shown on Inside Out West and Inside Out South on BBC One at 1930 BST on Monday 25 October.

Company history

ambition part of the A24 group

1996 Established, 24 nursing, UK branches. Ambition 24hours was launched in 1996 as a temporary staffing agency to meet for the first time the need for a 24-hour staffing service in the nursing sector. Following rapid growth, over the next decade the company expanded the service to cover locum doctors, allied health professionals, carers, social workers and teachers & lecturers, and we established a national network of UK branch offices. 2004 Expanding into South Africa. In 2004, Ambition 24hours – the A24 Group - expanded into South Africa, opening back-office facilities for the UK and SA markets. We also launched an £11 million ($17.25 million), three year investment plan in South Africa, based at 130,000 sq ft (12,000 m²) freehold premises acquired in Cape Town. We also initialised locum and nursing agency services in South Africa: 2004 marked the launch of domiciliary home care services, to provide private nursing and care giver directly to people at home for post-operative, geriatric, paediatric and other care. 2006 Our first major acquisition: NSSA. In 2006, the company made its first major acquisition: that of South African agency NSSA (Nursing Services of South Africa), the largest provider of temporary nursing personnel in the country, supplying over 3,000 staff each month. A second office opened at 50 on Long Street, Cape Town. 2009 More service agencies & offices. In 2009, Nursing Services of the UK and Locum Services of the UK, the UK divisions of The Nursing Services of South Africa which operates through its UK branch NS Health Staffing, was launched. Today Ambition 24hours is a multi-million dollar medical staff recruitment and management organisation operating with multiple brands in the United Kingdom and South Africa. The A24 Group has interviewers based nationally throughout the two countries and employs over 300 office staff across the world, with 27,500 personnel on its books - locum doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, care givers, teachers and social workers for major institutional service providers in two continents. 2010 We expand even more... Arabella Health Staffing Ltd - a wholly-owned subsidiary of the A24 Group – acquired BNA, The British Nursing Association, and its associated nursing agency brands Grosvenor Nursing and Mayfair Specialist Nursing. Pinnacle Staffing Group Plc, the owner of BNA, accepted an offer for a consideration in cash of £2,750,000.