Lucy Letby Court Case

[Pebble21uk]

Today has been the first day of the trial, which is expected to last for six months. One thread has already been pulled on the subject. Upon deletion MNHQ said that a thread about the case is fine but please read the rules around contempt of court before posting... these are copied and pasted here:
Publicly commenting on a court case:

You might be in contempt of court if you speak publicly or post on social media.
For example, you should not:
say whether you think a person is guilty or innocent
refer to someone’s previous convictions
name someone the judge has allowed to be anonymous, even if you did not know this
name victims, witnesses and offenders under 18
name sex crime victims
share any evidence or facts about a case that the judge has said cannot be made public

If any of the above take place then new threads will also be pulled. Let's please try and keep it going!

11:10am
Ms Hocknell is asked by the defence about Letby's Facebook searches.

She is asked whether Letby searched on Facebook for the parents of children other than those listed in the charges.

Ms Hocknell confirms that is the case. "There are a lot of searches for different people."

That’s key.

That implies general nosiness rather than anything morbid.

It also shows that the Prosecution can't really use her searching the families pertaining to this case as unusual or out of the ordinary as an explaination of how LL must be responsible.

I’d like to know if other nursing staff searched for the family/families on Facebook also. I’m not suggesting whether it’s right or wrong to do so, but whether it was usual. If others did it too then, it doesn’t hold much weight as evidence for the prosecution.

Just read this on the live feed - yes, absolutely key. LL was undoubtedly very consumed by her work to the extent that she obsessed over people. I feel she was very focused on how she was perceived by other people - patients and colleagues alike given some of her text / Whatsapp messages.

Yes searching for lots of families and not just the ones whose children you allegedly harmed or killed is completely different to stalking the families of the allegedly murdered or attacked children. That's just being weird and nosy.

Even if LL had exclusively searched the parents who are sadly involved in this case, I don’t see how that would be evidence really. It’s just as reasonable to think that cases where babies have died had a lasting effect on her and this meant that she had an enduring curiosity regarding the lives of those involved.

''The trainee doctor was called to insert a UVC (a catheter) into Child A on the afternoon of June 8. Following an X-ray, the catheter was "not ideally placed".
The trainee doctor then removed and re-sited the UVC, following discussion with more senior doctors. ''

Please can someone one advise me what a '' trainee doctor '' is ? Either the person is a medical student i.e still in university or they completed their undergraduate medical degree and have been awarded a bachelor degree in medicine i.e they are now officially called ''doctor''.

Lucy Letby completed her training 4 years prior to the allegations, is she too considered a '' trainee nurse'' ?

Please see the following published medical study about the risks of incorrectly placing a UVC:
J Neonatal Perinatal Med
. 2016;9(1):67-72. doi: 10.3233/NPM-16915060.
Incorrect umbilical vein catheterization is associated with severe periventricular hemorrhages and mortality in extremely premature newborns
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27002266/#:~:text=J%20Neonatal%20Perinatal,extremely%20premature%20newborns

A trainee doctor is any doctor who is in a training programme, so anywhere from a first year F1, to a senior registrar about to become a consultant. I don’t know how long neonatal training is, but in surgery you could be a trainee for 9 years or more. Not a medical student.

I am being ironic! Please read the study and the risk of mortality when a UVC is incorrecly placed.
Why is this '' trainee doctor'' not being named?

If the “not ideal” placement was felt to be instrumental in the baby’s death then this would have been picked up by the coroner.

All the deaths will have been via the coroner and all possible contributing factors would have been considered.

Whoever this doctor is, they are not on trial. If they did bare any responsibility, this would be discussed in the coroner’s court.

This is why they are putting all of the "incidents" and deaths together in one case - given what we are learning about Child A, none would stand as a sole charge.

All the deaths did not have post-mortems carried out.

Did YOU read the full study? Or just the abstract? Do you know what “not ideal” versus incorrect placement as defined by the study means?
Do you know whether imaging and readjustment of the line is common and not necessarily indicative of “incorrect” placement that would lead to higher mortality risk?

The doctor was advised that the catheter should be removed and replaced. That means the placement was incorrect.

Yes but again I ask you whether you’ve read the study yourself in full and whether you fully understand how “incorrect” is defined? Readjustment of a line that is then in the correct position from that point onward may not be what the study was looking at.

I’d read that as it was appropriately recognised by the check X-ray that the line wasn’t right and it was removed before use. That study is on the positioning of lines that are used.

That study seems to say that incorrect placement increases risk of death due to haemorrhage. Given that the baby didn’t die from a haemorrhage, it’s not relevant.

Regarding the potential clinical negligence or unsafe practices of the hospital/unit/other staff members, yes, it may be relevant to the defence, if proven. However, some posts on this thread significantly shift the focus into these areas as if the hospital or all of its neonatal staff were on trial. That is not the case and it's not what this criminal trial is about or how it will be decided, this is what I'm trying to point out.

So far there has not been enough detail from the defence to even validly consider any such arguments, that's why I think it would be wise not to get ahead of ourselves on here, that's all. CoC for sure wasn't perfect and the same can be said about most if not all neonatal and maternity services, and some are particularly bad. But let's wait first to understand how, if at all, their alleged failings have impacted on the victims' outcomes. Ultimately, there will be a detailed discussion about the coroners' reports, an assessment as to what the expected outcomes would have been but for poor care (if that's what's happened), with poor care and whether the cause was actually elsewhere, i.e.: there's a likely criminal offence that was the cause. We don't know enough yet. The facts are that the investigation must have been extremely comprehensive, it has taken years and LL was arrested several times before, and I do believe in this case a decision to put so much resource into it and then take this case to court must have been carefully considered because of the impact it will inevitably have on the families of these babies, LL herself and wider impact on healthcare providers. Nobody wants a shambles here and I really think it's inappropriate to come up with some far-fetched conspiracy theories that appeared earlier on on MN. The findings will be presented in the next few months and we will know more.

'' A pathologist found it would be reasonable to conclude that air in child A’s circulation was most likely caused by air administration through one of two tubes already attached to the baby’s body. ''

One of the complications of UVC insertion is an air embolism, which can be fatal.

Re her Fb searches, the one thing that stands out to me is that they were all completely inappropriate. I wouldn't want any of my healthcare providers staff to be looking up my personal social media, and certainly not after my child's death. It's grossly inappropriate to take this out of your workplace. Equally I'm uncomfortable with the fact CoC staff were texting privately about baby deaths and circumstances, again, all of this falls below professional standards and shows they were poorly trained in respect of patient privacy.

Agree, completely inappropriate. Probably and unfortunately more common than you think. GMC and NMC will see misuse of social media and info governance breaches commonly.

Of course clinical negligence will be relevant to the defence.
Clinical negligence causes deaths and clinical negligence can cause the deaths of 7 babies over a one year period or 100 babies, for that matter.

All staff who treated these children should be required to take the stand, the presentation of written statements from them is not adequate.

To prove if the deaths were caused by clinical negligence or were deliberate is of course what this trial is all about. Ms. Letby denies all allegations, let me add.

As already eloquently summed up by previous posters, the other members of staff are not on trial!!

If any one staff member was felt to have acted negligently such that they caused the death of a baby, they would be referred to their regulatory body and considered for suspension, erasure, etc.

And to add - Clinical negligence or murder are not the only two options.. ! There is natural death and everything in between.