A SENIOR nurse found guilty of misconduct after a dying patient was neglected on her ward - despite not being personally involved in the failings - yesterday won her High Court battle to clear her name.

Catherine Marshall was a grade E nurse working on ward B of Newport's Royal Gwent Hospital on February 5 2003, when a 75-year-old patient was brought in suffering from a perforated ulcer.

We reported in June how Brin Williams from Abercarn had lain on a trolley in accident and emergency without being given painkillers or observations being performed on him, and without checks on his fluid intake, pulse rate and pressure ulcer risk.

Mr Williams died in the hospital two days later and, following complaints from his family, an Ombudsman's report found that he had been "almost totally ignored" for ten and a half hours, and had not been properly monitored or checked for pain and discomfort.

Nurse Marshall was the most senior nurse working on the ward that night and, although she had not been personally in charge of the neglected man's care, she was found guilty of misconduct by the Nursing and Midwifery Council on November 13 last year.

Two other nurses also had misconduct charges against them proven over Mr Williams' care.

The Council ruled that, as part of her responsibilities that night, Nurse Marshall should have checked over notes made by other nurses to ensure there were no failures or omissions.

A caution was placed on Nurse Marshall's professional record, to last five years.

But yesterday Sir George Newman, sitting in London's High Court, overturned the ruling against Nurse Marshall, saying she had done nothing that did not accord with nursing guidelines.

The judge said: "It looks as though the case against her proceeded on the basis that she, being the senior nurse, was obliged to read the notes of all the other nurses, to make sure there was no fault on the part of any of them.

"It seems to me to be a very highly material matter to a nurse's duties, none of which is in either the nurses' principle guidance, or codes of practice, or anything else.

"I regard this finding of misconduct to be unsound."

The judge sent Nurse Marshall's case back to the Council for urgent re-consideration, for the sake of all nurses working in similar circumstances.

Sir George concluded: "If nurses are indeed under an obligation to review the records of other nurses they are working with, the sooner they know that the better.

"People should know what the law requires of them before they are brought up before a tribunal or a court."