Mother outraged after autistic daughter, 16, dragged across floor by senior nurse in hospital
A mother said she has been left “hurt and confused” after she claims a security guard at a hospital kneeled on her 16-year-old daughter’s neck before a senior nurse dragged her across the floor.
The 44-year-old social worker from Merton – who has asked not to be named – made a formal complaint to Kingston Hospital, in Galsworthy Road, after the incident on December 6, 2023.
But she only received a response last week to say the hospital had begun its investigation, in what she has described as an “attempted cover-up”.
She said: “My daughter is severely autistic. On the day of the incident she had been out with a friend and she was given drugs and alcohol by a man.
“She stopped responding to my texts so me and my neighbours went out looking for her.
“We found her in Dudley Drive wandering around in the road. I was panicking and didn’t know what had happened so me and my neighbours took her to hospital.”
When they arrived at Kingston Hospital, the mother said her daughter had a “mental health episode”.
She said: “She was screaming and shouting – she was confused. She didn’t understand where she was.
“Two security guards restrained her and one of them kneeled on her neck – like the George Floyd tactic.
“Her face was on the floor and her head under a wheelchair.”
Two nurses then came to help restrain the girl, her mother said.
Video shows the 16-year-old girl being dragged across the floor by a nurse at Kingston Hospital (Picture: Kingston Hospital)
She said: “Two nurses stood her up and locked their arms with hers – that was fine, that’s a safe way to restrain someone – and took her away.
“She was kept in overnight but they made her sleep on the floor. She was also sedated twice, which I’ve been told is dangerous because they didn’t wait long enough between the two injections.”
The next day the mother wrote a formal complaint to the hospital regarding the security guards behaviour.
She said: “My daughter couldn’t remember any of it but her ponytail was unravelled and her jeans were covered in dirt.”
After her complaint, the head of Planned Care at Kingston hospital called her to say they were investigating the complaint.
She said: “I asked her to put it in writing. On January 15, she sent me an email apologising for the security guards but also apologising about a nurse who dragged my daughter across the floor.
“I asked for CCTV and they sent me a clipped version, but you can still see two nurses restraining my daughter in good faith and then a third nurse gets involved.
“She pulls at my daughter, grabs her arm and drags her along the floor out of the other two nurses’ restraining hold. She could have hit her head on the floor.
“I had no idea it had happened until that moment.”
Last week, five months since the hospital first said they would investigate the claims, the mother received an email from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) within the Professional Regulation Directorate of the hospital.
The email said “urgent initial enquiries” are currently underway for “possible regulatory concerns”.
The department noted that concerns being investigated include poor medication practice – regarding the sedation of her daughter – and abuse of a patient – regarding the girl being dragged across the floor by a nurse.
From their initial assessment, the case officer said the matters raised “currently appear serious”.
The mother said: “It’s like they’ve tried to cover it up – I just feel so confused and hurt.
“My daughter has nightmares and she doesn’t like going out anymore. It’s really affected her and the investigation is going nowhere.”
A spokeswoman from Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “The Trust is limited by patient confidentiality and can therefore not comment on an individual case.
“The Trust always strives to deliver the best care possible for patients.
“We are also committed to ensuring that all staff treat every patient with respect and dignity at all times, including in very challenging and quickly changing situations.
“We have been liaising with the family following the incident and the complaint, as there are lessons that we can learn from this, which we are committed to do.”
Pictured top: A still from CCTV footage showing the 16-year-old girl being dragged by the arm across the floor (Picture: Kingston Hospital)