Culpability of consultants in Letby case

[curaçao]

Why did any of the 7 consultants who suspected Letby nit go to the police themselves? If you had strong suspicions that someone had committed murders, wouldn't you feel you had a strong moral duty to go to the police? OK maybe it was protocol to report it to managers, but surely they had a moral duty to whistleblow and report their suspicions to the police
But they are trying very hard to deflect blame onto managers who wouldn't even have known Letby nor understood the medical stuff

YABU

According to the chief executive who was brought in after the tragedies happened, the consultants tried several times to raise their concerns about her and were repeatedly ignored or accused of bullying by the managers who were mainly nurses.

There was an interview with her yesterday on radio four if you’re interested. I’m sure it’s available as a podcast.

They were made to write an apology letter to her, attend mediation and threatened with GMC referral for raising their concerns.
The managers were predominantly of a medical or nursing background so should have had a good handle on the medical details to the case. If they didn’t understand it, they shouldn’t have disagreed with what the consultants wished to do.

That doesn't explain why they didn't approach the police directly.

@curaçao

The NHS management had a clinical background

I think the issue here is that nurses are held on a pedestal (true in my trust) and can do no wrong. They are like the untouchables.

There are many wonderful nurses and I respect them deeply for the work that they do. But they are treated like an elite group compared to other professions in the NHS (except doctors).

I’m not clinical but this is based on my experience of having interacted with many departments / services in the NHS.

Because they were threatened with disciplinary action if they went to the police.

I think it's easy to say that with hindsight, but I am not clear from what I've heard that they were necessarily accusing or even suspecting Letby of murder at that time... they had identified her as a common factor but might not have made the leap to criminal behaviour. Perhaps they thought she was making clinical mistakes or similar, in which case it would have been a matter for the hospital rather than the police.

It's so hard to even contemplate the thought that a nurse could be deliberately harming tiny babies...I can understand why they didn't jump to that conclusion immediately, even though they knew that something was off.

If you thought someone was actually killing babies, would a threat of a disciplinary really stop you reporting to the police?

They were told to draw a line and that there would be consequences if they carried on.

The management response was terrible - meetings that were requested took 56 days to take place. The mediation and letter of apology are particularly staggering but management was told to commission expert investigations several times by several external people and they did nothing.

And what would the police have done? Gone straight to hospital management!

You are clutching at straws here, management have a hell of a lot to answer for.

Because they were threatened and told not to.
Theres a fairly long history of consultants whistleblowing, then being fired and then finding themselves blacklisted from working in the UK.
Stephen Bolsin who’s actions dramatically increased surgical safety had to move to Aus to find work after his whistleblowing.

That's not how it works either. You could end up losing your job, the consultants did everything they could and I don't think they're to blame at all.

Also, they thought she was incompetent for a long time, not deliberately killing them. YABU.

I must caveat my post by saying that I’m sure nurses can and do experience poor treatment/ bullying within teams and are not held on a pedestal at that level. I’m talking about at a higher level, where the power is, the level at which management interacts. I know plenty of nurses are not treated well.

In my experience there is a hierarchy of power in the NHS workforce, with Medics (Drs) at the top, followed by nurses, with AHPs near the bottom. The NHS is the most hierarchical organisation I’ve ever worked in and this needs to change.

It is surprising though that the consultants in this trust did not have that kind of power.

Ah so they put their own self interest before the lives of the babies they were responsible for.Just like the managers did.The consultants are no less to blame than the management

The consultants are the only reason this has come out at all, allowing you onto your high horse.

There was no evidence of a crime, just a trend observed. They got other people to review and badgered management. The consultant only found the insulin anomaly by spending his free time reviewing old cases - and he probably has a lot less free time than you do.

They were threatened and the police would have gone directly to the managers and would have taken their word that they were investigating it.

Even after being threatened and forced to apologise to letby the consultants still persisted and thankfully it eventually worked.

Hmmm

And that's another thing.The consultant interview blaming the lab for not picking up on the insulin issue, and not the doctor who reviewed the blues blood test results at the time

Very interesting take you have this….
That saying about don’t play chess with pigeons comes to mind.

YABU (completely)
The managers are culpable here and also the neonatal unit manager in my opinion.
What is your background and skin in this game? Are you a medic, NHS manager or medically trained?
Nurses have the threat of the NMC
Doctors have the threat of the GMC
Managers are often promoted well above their competency and often without any clinical insight. They are not accountable to anyone it seems.
You might WANT the consultants to be culpable here but they are not
Lucy Letby and willfully blind management are culpable.

I watched the interview with one of the consultants and there was a comment that at first hen the deaths started they felt 'thank goodness Lucy was on then' because she was so calm in a crisis.

There were two external reports into the deaths, neither of which seemed to be fit for purpose.

The thing is that usually when you get a cluster of incidents it is a systemic problem which may include incompetent or unsupported staff. It can be really hard to get to the root cause and investigations are often superficial.

There was nothing stopping the senior leadership calling the police. Tbh it would take balls at a level im not sure I have to call the cops to come to your workplace when you're not sure if there is any criminal element.

I wonder where the coroner was in this too.

I suspect because they didn't believe she was a serial killer and more that she was providing wildly poor levels of care or making mistakes. That would be for hospital management to deal with. Should they then have reported hospital management to the police? Its easy for us behind our computers to guess at what they should have done however when you are in it it's completely different. They may have even been questioning themselves at times as they were gaslit by senior management. The higher ups at the hospital and also of course Letby are the ones we should be holding to account, not those who tried very, very hard to call for an investigation.