Not only did Lucy Letby kill and badly hurt babies…

[determinedtomakethiswork]

She also prepared the memory boxes for parents of the dead children. Can you imagine having a memory box with photos and footprints of your dead child which had been taken by his or her merger?

That goes way beyond the murder. I just don't know how the families are coping.

Welcome to the New NHS, where reputation management on the part of HR, Comms, the asleep-at-the-wheel-as-long-as-I-get-my-big-fat-paycheck CEO and the rest of the corporate drones trumps the lives of babies.

And just what IS wrong with so many of the hospital Trusts in the North West of England??? Awful things happen in every part of the country (though this is the worst I can remember) but more seem to happen in the north west than anywhere else in England.

Tax payers paying for this evil murderer to be kept safe in prison - it’s not punishment enough. This child murderer should go to a prison in a country, where prison is a horrid life. Probably cheaper than in the UK. The uk prison service could pay for this subcontracting. Could actually deter people from committing murder.

I was relieved when she was found guilty. I thought she was going to get away with it. I just watched the Panorama programme. Apparently all her friends think she is innocent.

The medical director ie one of the managers, the person who told the consultants to apologise IS a doctor.

medical directors are always doctors. He was an orthopaedic consultant

As an ex-NHS HR Director I’m appalled at what seems to have happened. This isn’t what I experienced in the trust I worked for. We got rid when getting rid was the right thing to do. It’s a nightmare to get rid of medics but not an issue for HCPs and other employee types. Culture is everything and a culture that protects when multiple concerns are raised is unfathomable.

I think so too. They need to investigate every patient/baby she ever was in touch with. I fear there are more cases.

They are. It is my local hospital. I know people with babies in the nicu at the same time and they have been contacted

It's one of the most shocking cases I've ever read about. Not because of the dreadful things she did. Nothing humans do ever shocks me. At our worst we are capable of limitless evil. It was more her ordinary 'niceness'. In the paper, there was a photo of a text message she'd sent her mum. She'd asked if dad had put his bets on the Grand National yet, and if he hadn't, could he put some money on the grey horses for her. Then there was her mum's reply. God, it was so ordinary and nice. Just the sort of text exchange you'd expect within a loving suburban family.

Normally with psychopaths there is a history of evil. They start off torturing and killing animals, or causing fires, or whatever. Then things escalate until they murder someone. But that doesn't seem to be the case here. Nor was there any history of abuse or violence. Makes me wonder if she underwent a 'psychotic break', where you sort of lose touch with reality.

Letby's actions themselves are horrendous, but tge cover up by the hospital and refusal to act on the concerns of the consultants is an extra level of betrayal.

I do think it comes down to the culture of the hospital though, not just the NHS as a whole. I'm a HCP, not a nurse, and I work in rehab, not acute. A few years back in my old job, there was a complaint made about me and a colleague- it was completely groundless, there was plenty of evidence to show we hadn't done what had been alleged (and it turned out there were reasons the complaint had been made) but that isn't the issue, what has stayed with me is the attitude of my old head of department. She wasn't a nice person, multiple complaints of bullying had been made against her, and she was responsible for dealing with the complaint which really worried me. However, she behaved nothing like I had expected, she was really supportive, completely on our side, and at the time I was so relieved. It wasn't until later that I realised her attitude wasn't personal, ie 'Bloatstoat and X would never do such a thing, I know them and trust them' or relying on evidence, ie 'I've looked at the records and spoken to everyone else who was there and I know this didn't happen'. She just completely closed ranks and refused to acknowledge the possibility it could have happened, totally 'no therapist in my department would ever do this' and was incredibly angry the complaint had been made.

In that case, she was right, it didn't happen. But she was right for the wrong reasons. I pride myself on being good and professional at my job, but I could have made a mistake, no one is perfect. I could have been the sort of person who did do something unspeakable deliberately. She did an investigation of sorts, but there is a difference between really investigating the facts, and going in with the attitude that you know what must have happened and are looking to back that up. In that sort of culture if it extends to management I can see how even a group of consultants aren't listened to, because people are so caught up in the myth of their perfect department or hospital they refuse to acknowledge anything that contradicts this.

I work somewhere else now. It feels very different. I would like to think no one would allow any patient to be hurt in any way, but after this who can be sure of that.

I think she was a grief vulture. I know people like that. They love vulnerable people, always there when someone has a breakdown or a tragic story. They feed off other peoples trauma. She obviously lacked empathy and had other issues too.

The timeline of the murders that the DM is currently running is shocking. Those poor babies and their parents.

This is all so chilling.

On a previous thread yes I did think she could not be guilty as it seemed that she might be made a scapegoat for the hospital’s failings.

This is the worrying thing, she pulled the wool over a few MNers lives and she looks so bloody normal.

May she rot in hell.

it is chilling reading the timeline. The first three deaths in June likely couldn’t have been prevented but it seems like the ones after could have been if she was removed from the unit. I don’t believe baby a was the first one sadly given how prolific she seemed to be in June. I feel particularly sorry for the parents of baby G. Knowing she tried to kill that poor child three times and left the child severely disabled. I hope they sue the trust for millions to make sure that child and the parents have everything they need now to provide a suitable care package.

I fully understand the feeling of vengefulness, but let's please remember that people go to prison as punishment, not for punishment.
Deprivation of liberty and choice about something as simple as what you want to eat where you can go, how many books (and what books) you can have in your cell, what kind of crafts or work you do - especially on a lifelong basis - is punishment, especially on a lifelong basis.

I’ve only seen the news, I couldn’t watch the documentary, but I think the ONLY way we can learn from this is if there is some kind of system in place where more than one complaint of this nature triggers an immediate investigation.
For staff to be forced to APOLOGISE for essentially calling her out is insane.

I think she should be forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation to work out what the hell goes on in a head that leads to that, over and over. She didn’t even seem to worry about being caught.

I just feel so sorry for those families.

That’s obviously how she got away with it for so long though, because so many people think she’s innocent. She is obviously good at appearing empathetic and they only see that.

I can't imagine what her poor parents are going through at the moment or what the trial must have been like. I feel extremely sorry for them, to find out your precious child is not only a murderer but a serial baby killer. I think I would want to crawl under a rock and never come out again.

I don't think it's is helpful to start pointing the finger at them.

"They dented my daughter’s cheekbones getting her out. She knows that the horror of her birth is one of the reasons she is an only. She knows it’s the reason I can’t ride a bike due to the damage done to me. She knows it’s the reason we couldn’t establish breastfeeding and I expressed milk for her instead. Having her impacted on and changed me."

Im quite shocked that your child was ever told this in what sounds like graphic detail. What a burden to carry!

Those investigating NHS whistleblowers should be based in another country. Independent and unbiased, not worried about optics or anything like that. I know that is a pipe dream as legally this may not be possible, but it would be a very good thing.

This country seems incapable of acting on whistleblowing in a swift efficient and fair manner. Too many people to be protected it would seem. Meanwhile babies die.

Whistleblowing, not whistleblowers.

You are entitled to think this of course. I would be very happy with the death penalty for someone like this.

Prison in the UK IS a horrible life.

A German court has just refused to extradite someone to the UK because our prisons are considered to be unacceptably bad.

I think the ONLY way we can learn from this is if there is some kind of system in place where more than one complaint of this nature triggers an immediate investigation.

A robust litigious culture would go a long way toward inculcating a sense of accountability in managers.