A senior nurse failed to provide hourly observations on a vulnerable austistic patient who died when he was left unchecked for more than five hours at Southmead Hospital.

Rogel Bolivar has been given a 12-month caution by the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC’s) fitness to practice committee over the death of Nicholas Jones in December 2014.

Mr Bolivar was reported to the NMC by Avon assistant coroner Dr Peter Harrowing following an inquest in 2017. The inquest heard Mr Jones’s mother Sue found him unattended with breathing difficulties and had to perform CPR in a desperate bid to save him.

Despite efforts by her and staff to revive him, he died from cardiac arrest.

At the inquest, Dr Harrowing said Mr Bolivar had failed to act with the “necessary honesty and integrity as required of a registered nurse” and said gross failings by the hospital, run by North Bristol NHS Trust, contributed to the death.

The NMC panel has ruled his fitness to practice is impaired because of misconduct.

But after hearing Mr Bolivar had an otherwise blemish-free professional record during a 16-year nursing career the panel issued him with a caution order, allowing him to remain in his job.

Mr Bolivar, who was in charge of Southmead Hospital’s urology ward 34B on December 17, 2014, the day Mr Jones died, admitted failing to ensure hourly clinical observations were conducted on him between 9am and 2.25pm.

He denied a further allegation of failing to conduct hourly clinical observations on Mr Jones during the same period, a charge the panel found proven.

The hearing was told Mr Bolivar “genuinely believed” he asked a nurse, who was booked to work on the discharge lounge that day, to undertake hourly checks on Mr Jones but there was a “misunderstanding”.

He did not give her a verbal handover which would have been required, given the patient’s complex needs, the fact she had not previously worked on the urology ward and that she was unfamiliar with many of the terminology and abbreviations in the medical records.

A report outlining the NMC’s decision said: “Although the panel has found you impaired on public interest grounds, it has concluded that there is no risk to the public or patients which requires your practice to be restricted.

“This, whilst a serious matter, was a single incident which happened during one shift in a career spanning almost 16 years.

“The panel noted that it is in the public interest for an experienced and competent nurse with an otherwise exemplary record to remain in practice.”

Mr Bolivar was described by colleagues at the hearing as “caring”, “competent”, “professional” and “knowledgeable”.

The caution order means, for the next year, any prospective employer will be on notice that Mr Bolivar’s fitness to practise has been found to be impaired.