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A mental health nurse who failed to prevent a wheelchair-bound patient to eat a lightbulb has been suspended for six months.

Harribeto Akpan failed to notice that the self-harming patient had smuggled a broken bulb into his pillowcase at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol.

He had earlier eaten razor blades and slashed his wrists, the Nursing and Midwifery Council was told.

Akpan had been supplied by an agency to give one-to-one care for the 'at risk' patient on June 10 2013.

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He failed to prevent the patient, who was in a wheelchair, from ordering and eating a takeaway even though he was nil by mouth.

The patient was due to have an abdominal X-ray after eating the light bulb but Akpan then failed to make records of the patient's care.

He failed to mention that the man had vomited, that the vomit contained shards of glass and that he found glass in the patient's pillowcase. Akpan also failed to inform a doctor or any other nursing staff of the situation.

An NMC hearing in 2014 found him guilty of all the charges and gave him a conditions of practice order for a year.

This was further increased by another six months in 2015.

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A review hearing on March 31 2016 then decided to suspend him from nursing for six months.

NMC panel chair David Newman said: “There has been no expression of remorse.

“No acknowledgement of the effect Mr Akpan's conduct may have had on the patient, no evidence of remediation and no references offered.

“Mr Akpan has provided the panel with no evidence of insight, remorse or remediation into his failings, which the panel considers to have been serious.

“The panel has no information on whether Mr Akpan is currently employed and therefore no evidence that he has complied with the conditions of practice order.

“The panel considered a suspension order and determined that this was the necessary and proportionate sanction at this time.”

Akpan was suspended from the NMC register for a period of six months, to be reviewed on its completion.