Letby Case (part 2)

[OneFrenchEgg]

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4652340-lucy-letby-court-case?reply=121815754

follow up, remember rules around discussion of active cases

Have to say I don’t think I’d realised that Letby had only been trained to look after ICU babies since April 2015 which is when she returned from Liverpool women’s to the CoC.

That, the shift roster that shows she’s the only person anywhere near being on shift during all tue suspicious events, the monthly breakdown of neonatal deaths at the CoC and the fact that most of the babies seem to have died of something that doesn’t look like natural causes and was often unexpected in stable (ish) babies that shouldn’t have been at risk of dying doesn’t look great.

I really want to believe she didn't do it but the fact is that somebody killed these babies. Either they have a ward full of incompetent staff that have accidentally killed the babies or somebody else did it. Nobody else was present at ALL of the times except for Lucy.
She seems so normal. The notes are bizarre but I can accept it's her mixed up thoughts spewed out on paper.
There's lots of contradictions in her accounts so I wonder how she'll cope under cross examination from the prosecution.

No-one else was present at all of the times being investigated in the trial. How many other neonatal deaths were there in that hospital? Have they all been reviewed? I don't know if this has been published, so apologies if I'm going over old ground.

@Lockheart there were 2 more deaths investigated that were put down to natural causes and that covers all the deaths in that time period IIRC.

I've been half following this. My child was in neonatal care for a long while.

In my experience it's fairly rare for a baby to die in a level 2 unit (like Chester) as the level 3 units tend to look after the very poorly/tiny babies (who are sadly more at risk of dying).

Often babies in level 2 units are those whose health is improving, or who are growing well & on the path to home. Obviously babies can have setbacks but the number of babies who died/crashed is way more than would normally be seen, so it's clear that something/someone wasn't right.

It’s a complete anomaly, @worktired. It only takes babies over 30/32 weeks doesn’t it. And they’d have a survival rate of near over 90%.

And I think it’s significant that none of the doctors or nurses have ever seen anything like the symptoms these babies had. You’d expect breathing and feeding issues, nec and the odd infection. Maybe some other things I don’t know but this is weird. It doesn’t seem like the sort of stuff you’d get from being busy or short staffed or caring for babies that should have been in a level 3 unit.

Just caught up with some stuff from this afternoon. It’s not normal to have 257 sets of handover notes at home is it?

@RafaistheKingofClay staff aren’t meant to take home confidential information like that, but I’m sure many do accidentally. I’m not sure much can be read in to her having those hand overs at home.

It’s not normal to have 257 sets of handover notes at home is it?

Nope. I've been nursing 14 years and can probably count on one hand how many handover sheets I've accidentally taken home in my career.
There's probably around 50 of them in my locker at work and every so often I have a clear out and put them in the confidential waste bin but it's extremely rare that they leave the hospital.

As for death rates, I work on a large and busy level 2 unit and we have approx 2 deaths per year. We take from 26 weeks.
A lot of the deaths at coch were in 33/34 weekers and that's incredibly rare. Neonates rarely just crash and die, they deteriorate and you can see their condition changing, you get the warning signs. What happened at coch absolutely defies all belief.

Absolutely agree @fairgame84 - i don't think that has been publicised enough and people naturally think there are lots of deaths in these units, so the only unusual aspect is LL being on duty throughout, rather than the fact the deaths shouldn't have happened at all if you use regular statistics.

I also think it's such a horrific crime, that it's preferable to think they were sad unfortunate circumstances rather than those babies being murdered. It really is unfathomable.

I think they said Dr A was present for 6 of the deaths and a certain number of nurses

I mean what if she was triggering things to get this Dr to come to the ward?

Also I find it so odd that she searches people up on FB at one point over 200 name searches a month

i mean that is unusual

These are all fair points. But equally one has to consider the Shrewsbury case:
1,400 cases were reviewed with the finding that at least 200 baby deaths and 9 mother deaths over 20 years were avoidable. That works out at 10 baby deaths a year.

The conclusion was that there was inadequate staff training and inadequate communication.

@Mirabai but excess deaths over 20 years that need a review to identify is different to this case, where there were excess deaths in one unit over one year that were sufficiently unusual and out of the ordinary to be spotted by staff.

I have a habit of sticking pieces of paper in my scrubs too. I don’t think I’ve ever taken anything confidential home and kept it if it should be shredded. And even taking it home would be rare. I’ve certainly never taken 257 pieces home and kept them.

I cleared my sister’s house last year. There’s sheets from training courses, and all sorts of other stuff. There’s not one set of ICU handover notes or anything with a patient name on it.

A few might be a mistake. 250+ is unbelievable.

Per year the Shrewsbury maternity unit works out at an average of 20 excess baby deaths that were avoidable and should have been spotted by staff and management.

70 of the 200 were neonatal deaths the rest were still births which haven’t been included in the CoC numbers. That brings it down to 3.5 a year that could have been prevented and I don’t know if all of those made it to NICU. Even less whether they were medically unexplained in stable or improving babies.

Increased still births would presumably be entirely consistent with suboptimal maternity care or care during labour. Presumably hypoxic brain injury received at birth may have accounted for a number of the 70. It’s the same sort of stuff that was seen in the Kent report.

I’m not sure it’s the same as a huge rise in the number of deaths from a medically unexplained cause that seem to map exactly to the time that LL returned from intensive care training in Liverpool and stop when she’s removed from the ward. Particularly when it’s known someone must be deliberately harming babies because of the insulin spiking and that some of the babies allegedly have injuries due to trauma.

Stillbirths that were avoidable according to the report - far too many and red flags should have been raised. There was a culture of wanting to keep Caesarian numbers low. It’s quite extraordinary it went on for 20 years.

I don’t think it is exactly the same as a sharp rise in deaths on an ICU, I don’t disagree with that.

When will she face the prosecution?

When her KC has finished questioning her. He will have tried to preempt what the prosecution will ask, eg covering the notes etc. would imagine they will start today.

Actually not sure her trial is on today, remember the judge saying something about only a few days on and it isn't showing on court listings.

Court is not sitting again until Friday. It will be next week the prosecution should get their turn.

Ah thanks Electric

I’m confused - I thought LL began working on that particular ward in 2012?

Was it 2015?

Confidential materials etc it’s drummed into you nowadays at university about all that type of stuff - even LAs do mandatory training on what to do with confidential info ie your laptop, diary etc

seems highly sus that she took them home as does the FB searches - I mean who searches over 200 people in a month on FB? That is a bit obsessive!!

however she did say that she didn’t like throwing stuff away as he reason for keeping the notes - if she was a hoarder I’d expect photographs from her property to prove that unless she only liked hoarding notes

@Quitelikeit she started working there as a newly qualified nurse in 2012. She did her QIS course (intensive care course) in 2015 which is a 6 month course and involves a clinical placement at a level 3 unit which is why she went to Liverpool womens for a short period.

She’s been in the NICU since 2012 but wasn’t ICU trained. Mostly in the two SCBU rooms (3&4) rather than the ICU room according to her barrister yesterday.

Then she did QIS in intensive care which involved 6 months at Liverpool women’s. She returned from that in March/April 2015.

Could someone confirm the time period please?

i don’t know what the ‘norm’ is but only two natural deaths seems quite low to me for very poorly babies