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

'you think' just proves you don't know either... You clearly have very little knowledge of the cases or how these things worse. You're talking about real people who tried to raise the alarm and quite frankly it's disgusting the way you're blaming them.

I'm sure it helps if you're young, blonde, pretty and white.... you'd be amazed what people get away with in the public sector if their face fits and they're in the right club. Or actually, maybe you wouldn't.

The medical Director was an ex Orthpaedic consultant,and there must have been a director of nursing in there somewhere,

It's like going round in bloody circles. Don't people actually read other posts? Does it go in? There js only one person to blame and that is the person who killed the kids.

Oh yes Daliesque, I agree only one person murdered. But had the 7 consultants been listen to, then Lucy could have been put on gardening leave whilst an investigation was undertaken, then no more babies would have died. So I'd argue that those who were in a position to stop this do need to be held to account for why they failed to take action, and protect the very weakest members of our society, don't you?

Also following on from your comment "I'm currently on secondment elsewhere but in my substantive role I'm a Clinical Director. I had no training to take up that post. It is only because of the support and experience of my non clinical colleagues that I didn't end up ignoring a patient safety issue myself. The director of nursing at my trust was known to never accept criticism about nursing staff and brushing off complaints. As a fairly new Clinical Director (title is misleading, I am more like the Clinical Lead of a specific unit) she saw me as an ally and hinted that if I didn't support her I would end up having nursing resource lost from my unit. It wasn't an empty threat as she had done that to another colleague. It was only when I mentioned it in passing to a non clinical senior manager that I realised what was happening. Action was taken and I basically pulled up my big girls pants and started doing my job properly.
Can I ask why you applied for a clinical director role with no experience? How did you get the job? I actually think your post goes to show the huge level of hierarchies and managers and directors and executives there are, bloated in fact so bloated nobody seems to know who to turn to or what to do in a crisis, once it's beyond the clinical level, managers managing managers managing managers.
I've worked as an HCP for many many years, as a result I've worked in some fantastic hospitals and some complete flea pits which need a full on pruning out of the deadwood. What I've observed is this, good managers, good clinical and non clinical directors, good executives who all have the patient well-being at heart, who are very proactive, who see HCP as colleagues not underlings, who listen to those at grass roots, who take seriously complaints and look into them
straight away, who badger the strategic health authority and look to implement improved clinical outcomes, who are quick to deal with bullying and call out bad behaviour are quite literally worth their weight in gold. These are the well run hospitals. Sadly they have become fewer and fewer as more people enter these roles for monetary gain, quite often they themselves have been mediocre failed HCPs.
I do think all HCPs should be required to take an aptitude test though, I know in my profession not all universities offer interviews for perspective students, to me this is very very wrong. Worth looking at the case of Colin Norris a Scottish nurse...

What ? You are saying management would have suspended all 7 with nobody else to cover fir them?
You are really clutching at straws there!

Even one if the consultants said himself during the trial he should have gone to the police:

https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23353963.doctor-wishes-went-straight-police-lucy-letby-concerns/

He doesn't say he should have gone to the police, he says he wishes he had gone to the police. Of course, he wouldn't then have been available to be a witness, as he'd have had to emigrate to ever work again.

No, that’s wrong.
One the gang of 4 consultants LL said was picking on her included a female doctor.
I don’t understand why that’s relevant though, can you explain?

Only one consultant was BAME, the other whistleblowers were white. Management should be prosecuted.

It’s quite easy to be an armchair quarterback in this case and be frustrated and even angry that consultants didn’t go to the police themselves.

here's the thing.

By the time you are a male consultant in the NHS you are often mid-late thirties/early forties. You’ve been on this career path since you made your A level choices and you have debt - a lot of it.

You’re likely married and have a young family. Your wife is also likely to be a doctor or nurse - and she probably works in the same Trust as you or in a local hospital. She’s probably working very very part time (if at all) because the kids are young and your shift pattern was a nightmare until very recently.

You work in the women and children’s directorate so staff sickness is the highest in the hospital and your colleagues are mostly female. So there are a lot of part time (40 hrs) medics and may leaves (which aren’t backfilled at 100% WTE). You work a lot of hours and you’re the main breadwinner.

You know what happens to whistle blowers. You know that you’ll be referred to the GMC and you’re black so you know they are institutionally racist. You know the next 5-8yrs of your life will be tied up in hearings and statements and enquiries and that you will NEVER work in your hospital or even your deanery again.

you will have to sell the house, move the kids, your wife will have to find a new job and oh, there’s the debt too. You’ll likely need to emigrate except no one will employ you until the GMC have finished with you. Which will take 5ish yrs.

your life will be effectively over. There will be no coming back from it EVEN IF YOU ARE RIGHT. you will be a pariah. You know the police will go immediately to the Chief exec and CMO & CNO. You know that it will take MONTHS for them to reply to police. Meanwhile you’re suspended without pay. Maybe for a year or two. Maybe forever.

tell me again that you’d simply go to the police.

All of that @AgathaMystery and that would happen regardless of your race or colour. OP’s naivety is touching.

Who completed death certificates for these babies.were their deaths reported to the coroner so a coroners inquest and post mortem could be triggered?

Management DID instigate two independent investigations. Overall it seems that the suspicion that something was “wrong” was accepted, but there is no way this kind of situation could have been anticipated. It’s an extraordinary case.

And most midwife units are understaffed and working very close to critical incidents all the time. Working out the root cause of poor death stats is very difficult. Asking parents who have lost babies if those babies can have post-mortems is also very difficult.

It’s really the evidence in Letby’s bedroom that swings this whole case. It’s understandable that people want someone to blame, but it seems very complicated to me and I’m still not sure now how it could have been avoided.

TonTonMacoute · Today 10:53
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.

100%

Totally agree with this. I've come across many people like these managers - happy to take a massive salary (public money) and a top job title but not so keen to have the difficult conversations or make the tough decisions they are paid to take responsibility for.

They exist in education and other public services as well as the NHS.

But surely the whole point of having coroners is to flag up this sort of thing.The consultants were perfectly placed to order post mortem and slept the coroner , I would have thought

I’m a nurse and dh is a surgeon. We work in different trusts and we had this discussion. I don’t know what it’s like in Chester however in our trusts it’s made clear that the pathway to reporting a colleague is informing a clinical manager. If you went to the police in any scenario, you’d get a disciplinary. They gaslit these doctors into thinking they were the ones to blame not LL. If the doctors called the police, it would likely have been brushed off as a bullying case by management and closed. Every NHS trust has very clear guidelines to follow and (in dh and I’s experience) most hospital managers and lawyers are selfish knobs.

It’s NHS “culture”. “Don’t rock the boat”, “boys club”.
I was a sister on an elderly mental illness (psycho geriatric) ward in 1982, aged 27. Excellent and experienced staff reported several incidents to me of the male senior Charge Nurse abusing patients, shouting at them, making them clean up wee, pushing them over etc.
I knew I had to report, I spoke to an ex manager of mine who was a nursing officer, she agreed I had to report and came with me to see the male Senior Nursing Officer.
I was told by him that i was wrong to report as the charge nurse “could lose his job if this goes further”, but that he would investigate, but that I could lose my job through this. No investigation was done. It was horrendous, I didn’t sleep well for ages, I was anxious, the possibility of losing my job hung over me. When my male nursing officer came back from sick leave, I was royally bollocked. I spoke to the male Consultant who didn’t want to get involved in “nursing politics!”
my union (RCN) were utterly useless.
my heart goes out to those consultants, as well as the families of those babies.

If several consultants went to the police with concerns about suspicious deaths on their ward and that the management were refusing to act? I mean, I know the police don't have the best reputation these days, but I would bloody hope they would do something, yes!

@curaçao based on how confident you sound about what the consultants should or shouldn’t have done and how the police would or would not have reacted, it sounds like you have all of the facts and were there. So my question is why didn’t you report her to the police??

I thought this, OP. YANBU.

The coroner is informed of every death under the age of 18 in England. Even those where the cause is 100% obvious and innocent. The deaths are also reviewed by the local Child Death Overview Panel.

Every safeguarding training I've ever been on (education) has stressed that when there is an immediate risk, you inform the police.

The idea that within your trust, anyone who approaches the police, for any reason, will be disciplined, beggars belief.

As I said earlier if they flagged up all the unexpected deaths properly to the coroner's office ( who are police I believe) , then alarm bells would have been ringing much sooner.

You would definitely face disciplinary.

you would be suspended immediately for suspected gross misconduct and marched off the premises. Your pass would be revoked and you’d hear nothing for months.

If you were very, very lucky, you’d get a feeling it was about to happen in the meeting and very quickly declare you were going off sick (so you would get paid).

I’ve been a Union Branch chair in the NHS for 15yrs.

OP, you’re clearly a troll.

It’s bizarre that you lay the blame at the consultants’ feet. So many people have clearly explained why they didn’t call the police. Anyone that works in the NHS knows that reporting to a manager is the first thing you always do!
Grilled into you in training!
If you suspect a nurse is incompetent, as they would have done here, you tell managers. That’s just how it works.

How much more of an explanation do you need??