A NURSE who slapped a dementia sufferer and exclaimed ‘oh my God, I can’t believe I did that,’ has been suspended for six months.

Jacqueline Hamilton left the elderly man with reddening to his face after the incident at Amarna House, off Boroughbridge Road in York, on October 31 last year.

Hamilton slapped the pensioner, referred to as Resident A, after he tried to bite her hand.

She received a police caution for assault last December, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

Hamilton and a senior assistant had been attending to Resident A when he became agitated and uncooperative.

As he attempted to bite Hamilton’s hand she slapped him across the face in a ‘reflex’ movement. Immediately she shrieked ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I did that.’

The incident was reported and Hamilton was handed a police caution for assault by beating on 5 December 2013.

Banning Hamilton from nursing for six months on the basis of her caution for assault, NMC panel chair Anne Booth said Hamilton’s behaviour was “wholly inappropriate”.

She said: “By striking the resident, she placed him at unwarranted risk of harm, and breached a fundamental tenet of the nursing profession which is to make the care of patients her first concern.

“The registrant has brought disrepute on the profession and damaged public confidence in the nursing profession.”

She said Hamilton initially claimed self-defence and said her action was “wholly reasonable and proportionate in the given circumstances,” which Ms Booth said suggested that she “did not fully appreciate the gravity of, nor have full insight into, her actions at that stage.”