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

In every case there was a phase of rejection and a need for permission to think the unthinkable.

Citing the Recommendations (accepted) from the Allitt Inquiry would have theoretically achieved this.

Are practising clinicians today unaware of them? Are they not even mentioned in training? They seem to have been been forgotten during the same time period as women's and children's safeguarding started going down the toilet (2015 onwards).

Exactly

Because the police would have gone straight to the managers, who would have told them the complaint was vexatious and part of a campaign of bullying by the consultants against Letby. It was a no win all round for the consultants.

The consultants needed to stay in their posts to look after the children and babies in their community. If they had gone to the police themselves the chief exec would’ve dismissed their complaints and suspended them.
They will have had advice from the BMA who were representing them at LL’s grievance. They must feel bad enough already that this could happen under their watch - they did what they could do at the time. Hindsight is a marvellous thing but when I first heard about this I felt it was unbelievable that a nurse could be so malevolent.

You are misdirecting the hate here. Your post is inaccurate and shows a lack of understanding of the case and what did happen.

They are real people who care very deeply and have been traumatised by this case and worked very hard so making nasty hate filled posts such as this really show what a nasty troll you are.

The hospital management had made it clear that there was nothing to investigate and were made to apologise for their accusations and strongly told to cease their actions. I suspect this would have entailed a veiled threat of referral to the GMC for bullying of an individual, and this is a difficult area for some doctors, as their a lack of trust in the process, particularly those with a BAME background (google it).

The first thing a police referral would have done is speak with the hospital management, who would have pointed to what they thought was a witch hunt going on.

This is such a disturbing case, because there isn’t clear cut evidence (it’s circumstantial) and really the number of baby deaths in the unit should have triggered an investigation sooner. Whether hospital management thought there was a witch going on or not and I do think for that they should be questioned as to why they override the decisions for a proper independent review.

This exactly.

If anything this case illustrates what a shitshow the hierarchy in the NHS is. A lot of the managers are on obscene salaries and frequently fuck up in ways similar to this, it's just a lot of it doesn't make the press and they get huge redundancy packages if there's some other scandal. Absolute cunts of swines, the majority of them.

Read this and then read it again

But I do agree, if no one went to the police then they are somewhat culpable. I think contrary to what a lot of posters are saying, the police would have investigated properly especially if it was the consultants initiating it. 'Oh but management would have said she was being bullied'. The police don't deal with hearsay, they deal with hard facts.

I was listening to a podcast about the case. One of the horrifically died after having a metal instrument forced down his throat causing extensive bleeding. Yet his parents were advised against a post mortem ? Why ? Who on earth would advise that when it was an unexpected death ? So may questions that need to be properly answered. If a PM had been done then surely it would have been conclusive that something was very amiss. I just don't understand how on earth all these deaths could have happened and not stopped sooner.

@LodiDodi nah you’re wrong, the narrative of management = bad, clinicians = good is a red herring. That’s not what went on here.

Management is not one homogeneous entity. There are hierarchical structures and power dynamics within it.

You’re just trotting out a lazy, uninformed narrative.

Hear hear.

Lucy Letby is to BLAME.

The consultants didnt stand back and do nothing. They are traumatised by their experiences too.

I find this take quite disgusting actually.

I'm not saying it's always the case, read my post again.

I'm good friends with someone who works in a maternity unit that has major problems. She (and others) have gone to management again and again. They have gone to the nursing council and the medical council and the press. One of her colleagues contacted Donna Ockendon who was so concerned that this trust would be the next scandal that she contacted national heads of service and a report was done. Management won't let anyone see the report. Meanwhile the whistleblowers are managed out, bullied and ignored.

Don't underestimate how difficult it is to overcome a management who are determined to believe that the problem lies with the whistleblowers.

Yes it does.

More often than not referral to the GMC, especially for things like bullying leads to a suspension or being removed. Often after several years of investigation. It's career ending.

Especially when the managers concerned we're senior clinicians. It is important to point that out because non clinical manager could be excused for not understanding the clinical nuance. Clinicians should, even if it is not their own specialty.

It is also the case that incompetency is more common than a nurse being a murderer, so who is really going to jump straight to that conclusion? Other than the armchair experts on fora like this. I'll tell you now, you wouldn't automatically think that excess deaths are due to murder...it is rare, it is horrific and it is unthinkable.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the hospitals actions, there is only one person to blame for these deaths and that is the person who murdered the babies.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

What we see now as being the murder/attempted murder of countless babies would have appeared quite differently to those caught in the thick of it as events were unfolding. Even when they had grave misgivings about LL, they could not have been certain and they were being shouted down by management at every opportunity.

Even with all the information/a complete timeline/expert medical evidence/countless witnesses testifying, it took the jury a fair amount of time to reach a verdict on the charges they did and they failed to reach a verdict on some of the charges.

This was not a straightforward case. It was so unbelievable that many people still don't believe it.

This case proves one thing above all else. That the caliber of public and civil servants is lower than ever in this country. This is just another example of incompetent public sector workers in positions of responsibility failing. There is no single institution in this country where servants are managing well. Not a single one. Home office, passport office, DVLA, education, police and the NHS. Unfortunately the consequences of civil service incompetence in this case had terrible consequences.

Perhaps they thought incompetence rather than murder?

Very good article with a clear time line in today's mail. Under heading " you are harbouring a murderer".

Harvey repeat batted away concerns with weak excuses. Kelly the head nurse, it took her 55 days to get back to people are complaints.

Harvey is on 160 grand and has retired with over a million.
Kelly was also a blocker and said she's concerned consultants are picking on a nurse.

These line management systems are shit and need reworking.

They trap people in. I know from where I work the lack of training and knowledge means lots of things get missed and you can't complain about anything.
There are a few people who are actually intelligent, see past themselves and look at the bigger picture. They can be trusted to properly review and see a situation from many views. However the majority are egoistic blockers who can't review or understand information.

Sounds very similar to consultant Peter Duffy's experience as outlined in his "whistle in the wind" book where he was accused of racism by managers for complaining about incompetent colleagues (later proved in disciplinary hearings), and ultimately hounded out!

You've hit the nail on the head. You are worried about competency....

Why not report this clinician to the police?

I presume for the same exact reasons the paediatricians didn't report Letby - because they suspected incompetence which is an internal trust matter, rather than mass murder.

but the police would have gone straight back to management to gather the facts. And the whistleblower would have been sacked. And Lucy Letby would still have been working at the hospital without anyone internal pressing for an investigation

your anger is directed in the wrong place here.