SENIOR hospital staff giving evidence at a nurse's misconduct hearing say he was not safe to practise unsupervised following a string of alleged errors at Queen Mary's in Sidcup.

Phillip Aderinola, who is accused of failing to call a doctor when a patient stopped breathing, was not present at the Nursing and Midwifery Council's misconduct hearing this afternoon to answer the charges.

The other allegations include failing to identify a patient had heel sores and failing to give prescribed medication when a patient's pulse was 156 beats per minute between January 2006 and June 2009.

Dhawali Ogletree was a practice development matron at Queen Mary's Hospital and was tasked with supervising Aderinola in May 2009.

Giving evidence at the hearing, she said: "One of my concerns was that he had difficulty retaining information or he could not remember what he had done the day before.

"He was not able to recognise a sick or deteriorating patient to take appropriate action, such as low blood pressure or high heart rate."

Gabriella French, also a practice development matron at the time agreed he did not pick up on information easily.

Speaking at the hearing, she said: "He was not safe to practise unsupervised.

"He did not pick up on things that were quite basic.

"There was no indication that even after things had been pointed out he would take the ball and run.

"After two hours of being with him, I felt he was unsafe to practise."

Junior sister Zoe Paulin, who supervised Aderinola from May until June in 2009, also gave evidence at the hearing.

She told panel members: "I do not think he was safe because even though there were no incidents, he did not pick up on things such as poor urine output or high heart rates.

"It fell to other people to do that.

"I feel there would have been an awful lot of near misses if he had been left unsupervised."

Aderinola resigned from South London Healthcare Trust on June 1 in 2010.

The hearing continues.