A `HOPELESS' district nurse from Huddersfield who made a series of worrying blunders over a long time could be banned from practice today.

Judith Broadbent, 56, sparked a string of complaints from patients for leaving bandages agonisingly tight.

She also failed to spot dangerous medical conditions and gave people medicines they were allergic to.

And the `dizzy' nurse wore out terminally ill patients by chattering about herself when she was supposed to be treating them.

She also broke the rule of patient confidentiality by contacting a sick woman's family against her wishes.

Broadbent was working as a D-grade community nurse in Golcar in 2002 when her supervisors started to doubt her competence.

They sent her to Calderdale Primary Care Trust for a six-week supervised placement in May, 2004, to get an independent opinion.

Within weeks Broadbent had made two more serious blunders.

She checked an elderly patient's blood pressure, but failed to tell the man's GP the reading was dangerously high.

And when sent to treat a patient with a number of ulcers on his right leg she failed to notice the condition had spread to his left leg as well.

Yesterday a panel of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) found her fitness to practise was impaired by her incompetence.

Chairman Catherine Duthie said: "Over a prolonged period of time she made continuing errors and demonstrated poor practice, primarily in respect of poor judgement.

"The panel concludes that the lack of competence does not amount to an isolated event."

Broadbent was found to have failed to demonstrate the standards of knowledge, skill and judgment required to practise without supervision as a D-grade community nurse between July, 2002, and June, 2004.

She was also found to have failed to demonstrate she was capable of working safely in the community without supervision twice in May, 2004.

The NMC cannot have Broadbent struck off due to a technicality.

She can be suspended for a maximum of one year or have conditions placed on her work.

Once a nurse has been suspended, or set conditions for two years or more, then they are at risk of being struck off.

Broadbent, who qualified as a nurse in 1981, was employed by Huddersfield Central NHS Primary Care Trust in 2002.

Her team leader, Dawn Gordon told the hearing: "At first I just thought she was a little bit `dizzy'. There were little mistakes that kept cropping up."

She said a patient told Broadbent that a bandage on his leg was too tight, but she failed to remove it.

When the dressing was removed later it had left a seven square cent- imetre bruise, said Ms Gordon.

On another occasion a terminally ill cancer patient complained that Broadbent's prattle was driving her to distraction.

Pat Wallace, Broadbent's supervisor at Calderdale PCT, said Broadbent's practices were dated.

She said that one day Broadbent casually said an elderly man's blood pressure was high. "It was `oh yes, his blood pressure was high' and that's how the information came out.

"It didn't seem that it had been important to her at the time.

Carole Donaldson, director of operations at Huddersfield PCT, said she had had to recommend that Broadbent be dismissed. "I couldn't trust that she was safe to practise unsupervised," she added.

Broadbent resigned in June, 2004, after complaining that her colleagues thought she was hopeless and looked down on her.

She is not attending the hearing and is not represented.

The hearing continues.