Lucy Letby guilty

[BarelyLiterate]

Lucy Letby has been convicted of the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of six more.

My thoughts are with the families of the victims.

An article about a 2007 book about insulin being used as a murder weapon almost from the time of its discovery. When my relative was a medical student in the 1980s, amongst other things, they said that insulin (administered in a way I won't mention here) would be the perfect murder weapon - more or less undetectable. Not sure that applies any more with modern forensic detection techniques, but it's always stuck in my head. I can't believe, in the wake of the Beverly Allit case, that procedures were not put in place nationally to treat insulin as a controlled drug on wards.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6250172.stm

It is interesting how much my mind has changed throughout this with all the evidence now being told

To begin with I thought the hospital were using her as a scapegoat
Then I read the transcripts from the trial and started to think she was incompetent
Began listening to the podcast thinking he's she was the cause of the deaths but again because she wasn't competent but never purposely

But now I've read everything and watched/listened to all the evidence and especially the panorama doc. I am certain she did it and I hope one day for the family's she tells the truth and admits what she's done and why

exactly this.

Plus some of her attempts and actual murders were air. Impossible to monitor unless we now want 2 nurses together at all times too as well as the drug monitoring? When there is already such vast shortages of nurses?

Its just impossible. We have to trust that 99.9%, more than 99.9% of nurses arent intentionally causing harm.

I had a feeling she would be found guilty.

Just absolutely awful and it doesn't bear thinking about. You can just never imagine a person that people intrinsically trust (like a medical professional) with their lives and the lives of their loved ones doing such a horrendous thing.

I suspect that this went beyond wanting the attentions of a married doctor. Like Beverley Allit, I suspect that she has Munchausens by Proxy and fed off the attention that she received and the "excitement." Her messages to her colleagues show that she definitely enjoyed the attention-and receiving pity when she'd have yet another bad night with the babies in her care.

I know with Beverley Allit it was a case of she wanted to make the children sick and then be responsible for reviving/saving them and get the attention from that and all the praise. It's likely there was some element of this for Letby too.

Her messages with her co-workers definitely suggest a deep need for attention and pity parties. She liked to feel a martyr, I think, judging by the messages she exchanged.

"I think that every single tablet and every single mm of liquid should definitely be counted."

How often do you want the stock take done? I work in a small vet practice- we do this a couple of times a year- yes we count every pill including open tubs of hundreds of tablets. Liquid is estimated to about the nearest ml, if we're looking at the 10ml insulin vials, say. It is a tedious ballache and takes a load of staff (we pick the quietest day we can and receptionists, nurses and vets all pitch in) fecking hours.

The controlled drugs cupboard is to stop secret addicts (not mega common but not vanishingly rare) helping themselves to abusable drugs like morphine, valium etc. As others have pointed out, serial killers are much much rarer, and a wider range of drugs would do it. Or air, or milk, depending on where you put it and in what quantity. If you have IV access there's no end to what you could use.

It's fucking incomprehensible. I can't get my head round it at all.

The managers who didn't listen to the concerns of staff and didn't investigate sooner are culpable, too, imo.

Those poor, poor parents must be going through hell.

Yeah I understand it can't be done manually.

But can't they implement a computerised system for stock levels.? So the nurses don't have to write anything down.

Ef. All aspirin could be held in a tiny shelf, similiar to in a vending machine. A nurse presses the button to get two aspirin. The computer attached to the medicine vending machine automatically records the stock level change. And reports can then be produced from this machine.

Most stock counts in businesses are done on computerised systems.

Why in a hospital, are medication stock levels either not counted at all, or is recorded by hand?

It seems to be a terrible way of doing it

I’m glad justice has finally been served for the families but so harrowIng, nothing can bring them back or undo the harms caused by those who survived this evil excuse for a human being.

LL is a pathetic coward and hope she will be made to return to court to face them for the sentencing.

The managers on the periphery should be held accountable for their incompetence and frankly institutional gaslighting of the medical experts. LL should have been stopped MUCH earlier by them. The first 3 babies were already 3 too many.

It’s a shame the consultants didn’t just call the police when their concerns weren’t listened to. I’m sure they must deeply regret not doing so.

I also feel for the other families and staff who have passed through the unit and hope they can find some peace from this situation.

It is absolutely awful. The testimonies of the consultants is chilling.

What a terrible and toxic culture. You can only imagine the environment and culture when senior doctors felt they were silenced. How would anyone else stand a chance raising concerns? And using the threat of the regulator against then? Terrible

In other countries the patient is charged for medications received and so all medications given are recorded and there’s the financial admin to add in. The nhs doesn’t charge so surely there can be a basic system to note down who got what medication and when. Sounds unbelievable that such a simple system, possible in great complexity in all most other countries, does not exist in the UK NHS. Perhaps it exists in the UK private hospitals?

You don’t need to link any thing for me. I am simply saying,potentially, a management group naively thought clinical, concerns didn’t warrant further exploration. They believed her explanation. Operated on conscious and uncousious bias. Not one of them,etc
They did not follow their own whistleblower procedures and certainly have learned nothing from the Francis report

The friend was incredibly unwise to go on national television and defend this woman.

It doesn’t matter whether it was then or now, what matters is that on the day she was found guilty, her friend was seen to defend her on national television.

She will have turned herself into a hate figure overnight, and while it’s not right there are people who will question whether the friends knew what she was up to.

And what about her children, has she potentially put those at risk as well?

People who defend murderers, especially child murderers, are not well received in society.

Not really relevant to the case but NHS admin is really last century.
Even my developing country main hospitals use electronic patient records, I couldn't believe that the NHS was still working off chasing bits of paper!

NHS senior managers / executives- no accountability for failings or sheer incompetence; enable bullying of consultant doctors; have absolute power and control; are not regulated and are paid a fortune to boot (£200k pa quoted). Bloody outrageous. Babies lives would have been saved had they acted on consultants demands for action instead of trying to sweep it under the carpet for years to save their reputations & pay cheque!!
Tail wagging the dog.

Its documented. On prescription charts. That are stored with patient notes, or more commonly becoming electronic.

But checking every script against how much is in stock is not easily done.

With insulin, 1 unit is 0.01ml. I have adults who are prescribed 4 units, so 0.04ml. It comes in 10ml bottles. A fatal dose for a prem baby is tiny tiny amount. We arent talking about a whole strip of pills, or a full bottle, or even a noticeable amount out stock by looking.

In other countries it’s all recorded. It’s unbelievable that the NHS can’t manage its medicines. There’s just no excuse.

Of course what Lucy did is horrible and she deserves everything they can throw at her. But I'm far, far more angry at these people who not only will never stand trial but continue in those jobs and retire on nice, fat pensions paid for by us, the taxpayer!

Why are their names not released? Why are they still employed? Why is there silence around this?

They have blood on their hands and long may it haunt them.

*well not more angry but frustrated

Its recorded here. Exactly what a patient has been given and when is all documented as it is in other countries. If we charged all they would have to do is taly up the prescription chart when discharged. As i imagine they do in other countries.

@Flapjacker48 where did I say it was??

I find that kind of ignorance you clearly have over the conviction really simplistic. So, because the jury found her guilty, that means she MUST be guilty? If that's right, then zero convictions would be overturned. It was only a few weeks ago that a man was released from decades in custody when new scientific evidence proved he didn't rape the person he was convicted of raping.

I'm in NO way saying that Lucy wasn't guilty. My whole point was I feel the evidence isn't sufficient either way. It's possible she is guilty.

But don't act like the verdict trumps all opinions and thoughts on the trial. It's ok that I'm still questioning the evidence. It's my perogative. I realise it makes zero difference to Lucy, the jury or the families. I realise I'm a random member of the public. But I'm also entitled to challenge what I feel was a very strange trial based on circumstantial evidence.

As I said before, I truly hope she was guilty and this is the right decision.

Their names have been released. Along with details of the current job of one and the amount of the pension pot of another who’s retired to the South of France.

Because it's actually very easy to kill someone with an overdose of insulin. That's why I check 3 times before I administered any insulin. So I know I am giving the correct dose. I work in the community, so there is no second nurse to check the dose.

How can you possibly form any view on the sufficiency and quality of the evidence? All you have heard is what has been reported. It’s clear from the news stories today that there has been a lot not in the public domain

To me the one compelling piece of evidence was the shift chart. The fact she was on every shift something happened whereas all the other nurses were only there for a few was stark. I don't believe that could occur by coincidence alone. The odds must be massive of that happening

It really is a case of Beverly Allitt round two....this should never have happened again.

Allitt will unlikely never be released into society. Huge relief for everyone.