Lucy Letby appeal

[GonnaGetGoingReturns]

Sorry if not allowed to discuss here but just seem that this vile creature plans to appeal against her original sentence as per yesterday’s news. Her defence team is leading this potential appeal.

WTAF?!

They haven’t reached a verdict on is it 6 or 7 poor other little babies who died and she’s suspected, I thought?

So sad for the poor parents and babies still.

Those are good points. But 4,500 units in a neonate would surely have killed them instantly - it's a massive amount as you say. Which suggests the blood tests may be faulty as it's an absolutely lethal dose that no one could survive.

Insulin in and of itself doesn’t kill you - it’s the low blood sugar and hypoglycaemia which kills. Probably what saved the baby was that the insulin was - as I understand it - mixed in with his intravenously delivered nutrients which included lots of sugar…

nevertheless his blood sugar level went down to 0.8 which I would have thought would mean death / brain injury… but somehow he survived and I believe is healthy…

the medics all seem to think the high insulin number at ~4,500 is credible. Indeed baby L apparently had an even higher number for insulin!

lots of detail about baby F here -

https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23149016.recap-lucy-letby-trial-friday-november-25/

I know quite a bit about baby F but not baby L

Thank you for this link - I wish I had known about this reporting to follow live. I knew the weekly podcasts wouldn’t have captured much of the detail but this was fascinating and so compelling. The only thing I’m not clear on was the cross examination. It appears that either Ben Myers’s was cross examining for the sake of it (I supposed this is needed) or that he had no clue of what the answers would be (very very unlikely). He seems to have little or no point to the questioning. Certainly nothing that made me think, ‘oh but hang on….’. That said, the defence didn’t dispute extraneous insulin so maybe it was the first reason.

I agree. I found the reading very interesting and the witnesses could certainly explain why they came to the conclusions they did.

I must say, if Scots law would allow an appeal in these circumstances it would clearly be a worse system, because it would be so utterly irrational. However, to the best of my knowledge the Scottish system, though different, is definitely not as bonkers as that, and once again the poster would appear to be mistaken.

Exactly this

Lucy Letby killing and care in the unit being very poorly delivered are not mutually exclusive

Can i ask the Lucy Fan Club member - what is it about this woman that you can’t see how it’s blatantly obvious that she killed these babies? Were you so defensive of Karen Matthews? Who also pleaded not guilty, there was no forensic evidence that she was involved in her DD’s disappearance other than the word of her abductor. There’s far more evidence against Letby.

Just admit we are a very looks-orientated society and you can’t square it in your head that a pretty white woman could do this.

Rather than argue that a nurse took advantage of this to kill babies, it could be said that there was insufficient care and medical errors (there were some it was noted during the trial) and that was the cause of the demise of the babies.

@HazelE123 how would ‘insufficient care’ lead to unnatural levels of insulin in the system of two babies? And how is it that these deaths and collapses happened in a unit that was insufficient…but also only when ONE nurse was around?

The jury did hear about inadequacies and failures on the unit.

Oh no, the Americans (who our victims of child sexual abuse on death row) think our justice system is wrong. Gutted.

Parole hearings don’t mean he will be released. The fact he’s serving six years for a crime that normally Carrie’s a much lighter sentence shows that he’s recognised as a danger.

Lucy Letby killing and care in the unit being very poorly delivered are not mutually exclusive

Good point. I hadn't really thought of it this way in more general terms. I knew about the consultants concerns being ignored but there has to be a bigger picture.

The enquiry will be illuminating I think.

Mistakes in a terribly run hospital with multiple issues (if you see the Quality care commission reports for that period) with a big shortage of qualified nurses - which is why LL did so many extra hours and shifts and therefore was there more than most! Doctors not present enough.

A nurse who worked on that unit commented that there were retirements and redundancies among the senior nursing staff and "you cannot run a neonatal unit with no experienced senior staff". They said the unit was not fit for purpose and also confirmed the sewage, plus an outbreak of black flies which meant having to get an exterminator in. Said junior Doctors were GP trainees, Consultants never came round unless they were called or had a ward round (rarely). And that Lucy Letby was one of only three full time staff so working extra shifts (sometimes up to 60 hours a week). It was a Facebook post which seems to have now been taken down.

Not a unit I would want my baby cared for on. Bad management (or no management) leads to multiple mistakes and sometimes sloppy record keeping.

I wonder why it’s been taken down? Because if that was all true the CQC would have closed the unit down. I call bollocks on it.

Oh Crikey me neither!

None of that means that babies weren’t murdered though

what you have read on Facebook is not reliable (surprise surprise) - there were actually quite a number of Senior and dedicated doctors and nurses attached to that ward for the care of neonates.

What is true is that at times the ward was short staffed and that ideally staff with more experience would have been available.

But here’s the but. Short staffed units don’t typically see 7 deaths in a year where 1 might be expected. A short staffed unit is likely to see more mistakes and sub-optimal care - but there isn’t any obvious reason healthy Neonates should suddenly drop dead.

The barrister for the prosecution put this to letby for every baby. In what way did short staffing - or in one or two cases the late application of a medicine or medical treatment - lead to the baby’s death or to a sudden near-death experience for the babies that didn’t die? In case after case Letby couldn’t answer because there was no explanation for these sudden deaths.

On this thread we have examined particularly carefully the neonates who were poisoned with insulin. In what way does short staffing lead to babies being deliberately poisoned with insulin? How does that work?

Other babies were found with air bubbles in their main arteries / heart valves - how does short staffing lead to the deliberate injection of air into a neonates vascular system?

One baby was found with a ruptured liver similar to what you might see in a road accident - how does that link to poor staffing?

Sure that ward and that hospital had issues - but these neonate deaths aren’t explicable unless you assume that there was a killer at work.

As for the sewage in the taps - that happened on one occasion in the ward - the hospital technician couldn’t remember exactly when - and the ward staff speedily worked on a work-around to wash their hands safely elsewhere.

The black fly infestation is purely made up.

https://allcatsrgrey.org.uk/wp/download/governance/clinicalgovernance/rcpchhinvitedreviewwnov166final-forrdissemination-088021771_30pm.pdf

That confidential report is eye opening re the state of the unit.

Only two Consultants rounds a week. "Nursing staff levels are frequently less than the recommended levels ...........there are always two band 6 and band 5 nurses on shift but these are often covered by long term agency staff".

Some historical issues around senior level decision making. "Some nurses reported that external escalation was not always as timely as it could have been and nurses did not feel empowered to participate."

Some deaths not reported as "expected" Not all deaths were sent for post mortem (despite this being recommended).

The Review team was concerned at whether there were sufficient staff to care for triplets.

"In the light of the increased number of STILLBIRTHS and neonatal deaths during 2015 ..........." (LL can't have been responsible for the raised number of stillbirths).

"The locality was reported to have a high level of Domestic Abuse and substance misuse".

"There were several reports that the doctors will wait too long before escalating concerns about an infant"

"The unit took 11% of network admissions but experienced 13% of the deaths in 2015. The consultants had explored a number of factors themselves but not in a systematic way nor following sound governance and root cause analysis processes "
"Staffing levels are inadequate"
"Most of the infants had undergone a post mortem .......but these did not include systematic tests for toxicology, blood electrolytes, or blood sugar ........."

Recommend an independent expert look into the unexpected deaths.

One neonatal consultant, one.

No. Seven consultants, one with a special interest in neonatolgy.

There was evidence that other similar local units had the same or worse staffing levels, yet in 2015/16 the neonatal death rate at the Countess of Chester was much higher than theirs.

Stillbirths are not relevant, self-evidently they would have occurred on the maternity unit, not the neonatal one.