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

I presume they didn’t see it as murder/deliberate harm at first - something was going wrong and they flagged concerns about her being on shift every time they unexpectedly lost a baby - I think she was seen watching a baby who’d lost it’s breathing tube - I’d assume that was incompetence myself and want her moving - only the bloods showing synthetic insulin flagged deliberate action I believe and that was later. It’s very hard to even imagine someone would do such things. They ‘correctly’ as per nhs guidance flagged concerns to management that she was concerning them - probably in a very useless nurse kind of way at first.
I mean the whole thing is pretty unbelievable- serial baby killer would not be your first thought would it even fit medical professionals.

Well, perhaps they would, its all wise after the event isn't it? the NHS management was informed of concerns and did nothing, in fact backed Letby to the hilt.

Based on that i.e Full Trust support for Letby and with obviously fewer deaths, i fail to see that the Police would have done anything all... No evidence, no coroner inquests suggesting foul play, just that Letby was on duty.

The person to blame was Letby, thats it, no one else, i doubt very few of us would think a nurse (or anyone else for that matter) is capable of murdering babies.

Autopsies were done on some babies not others as parents didn’t want it. Often they were inconclusive. Some put down to pneumonia.

I am ' clearly a troll' because I don't agree with you!
It is part of a doctors job to report every unexpected or unexplained death to the coroner's office ( which is usually run by the police) for the coroner to investigate.Had they done this with every baby and post mortem been carried out, Letby would have been stopped sooner.

Are you not aware of the legal protection afforded to whistleblowers.If an employer tells an employee they will be disciplined fir whistleblowing, then they are in breach of the law.

@Mumsanetta yes! OP is obviously a troll and there have been more than enough solid explanations from professional posters in the field. Perhaps OP could set out her knowledge and qualifications but of course he/she/they won't because they are just making trouble.
As for those who still think the police are a) trustworthy, b) well enough resourced to follow up a country wallowing in crime, I'd get back to those crap crime novels and leave the real professionals to do their jobs.

It isn't up to the oarents to decide.

This is very interesting. The Consultants. The Management.

Ah, almost true, thanks for pointing out that it was mostly men, putting their necks on the line, and pushing and pushing to stop one of the worst child serial killers in recent history, who happens to be a woman, right? Just saying.....
They deserve a pat on the back you fool.

It is. Parents have to consent to a PM.

I seem to remember the killer of Sarah Everard was affectionately referred to as 'the rapist' by his police colleagues. Sometimes people find it easier to gossip among themselves rather than do the right thing.

Sorry if I missed it, but what is your background in all this? Do you work in the NHS in any way? Do you believe that every case discussed with a coroner leads to a postmortem? And where did you read that the cases were not reported to the coroner? Reporting to the coroner that a baby died unexpectedly does not immediately trigger a police investigation. Dead patients family members often decline post-mortems anyway…
LL killed them using different subtle methods. The coroner would not have linked the cases together because each case is treated differently.
The only way to link the cases and do an investigation is through the proper channel of informing managers.

I’m really interested in why this is the hill you’ve chosen to die on today.

OP, you sound quite new to this trial. For those of us who have known about Lucy Letby for five years and followed the ten month trial closely, these questions have been answered. Air embolism is unique and almost impossible to spot. It took experts many hours to understand this method of killing. Overfeeding with milk? Doesn’t initially appear to be murder, rather incompetence. The significance of the insulin poisonings were missed by a junior Dr. The COCH was not a well-run unit which is why it was a perfect setting for Letby. She was very sly. She ‘weaponised her craft’ as was stated Friday.

The issue is their entire careers.

There was a quote from someone who said that the whistleblowers are seen as the problem and are treated accordingly.

They are disciplined (as in this case), they can be suspended or they can be 'managed out'

Many doctors (including consultants), who have blown the whistle trying to highlight malpractice have lost the support of their employers, who are responsible for appraisals and revalidation thereby losing any chance of working anywhere else

Whistleblowers were driven out at Stafford, where surgeons ended up attempting to feed and look after patients themselves trying to keep them alive after surgery and there have been multiple cardiology issues across the UK

All the whistleblowers were ignored, suspended or fired

Vindication after trials, inquests and inquiries is very often too little, too late

https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/11640263.landmark-legal-win-cardiologist-sacked-croydon-hospital-whistleblowing-patient-safety/

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/lessons-not-been-learned-bristol-303374

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10908579/Ian-Paterson-breast-surgeon-NHS-whistleblower-reveals-raised-concerns-butchering-doctor.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11494191/Climate-fear-Birmingham-doctors-putting-patients-risk-claim-whistleblowers.html

They want to raise the issues, they really do, but their attempts are seen as professional jealousy, with managers preferring to believe that it's all glorified office politics

IF they go straight to the police, without going through the 'proper' channels first, they are fired.

If they go to the media, they are fired and reported to their respective colleges and the BMC

They are watching people suffer, but trying to make management understand what's going on is like trying to kick a boulder into action.

Of course, being fired or suspended means any credibility as a witness has gone up in smoke.

curaco - you obviously don't like doctors.

Where was the Sister in charge of the Unit, the head of nursing - they abetted this as much as the managers.

This

Premature babies don't have much chance of survival to start with, a high(ish) death rate is expected and it is very easy to disguise deliberate harm as accidental or a result of poor training.

When notes aren't updated in time, when the harm is subtly administered, how does a doctor, a fellow nurse or a consultant, point a finger at a specific cause of death, a specific action which led to a death or any one person who did the harm.

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GabriellaMontez · Today 16:10
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Every safeguarding training I've ever been on (education) has stressed that when there is an immediate risk, you inform the police.
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The idea that within your trust, anyone who approaches the police, for any reason, will be disciplined, beggars belief.

later in my nursing career I was a school nurse employed by a health authority. Probably early 2000’s. A child disclosed sexual abuse by a close relative to me, and while waiting for our nurse safeguarding lead to ring me back I informed the school safeguarding lead, a senior teacher, who told me I shouldn’t contact social services as “the girl can sometimes be a bit hysterical”. My safeguarding lead and SS were also wary because the abuser was a high profile local public figure and “a good man”.
However I was in court to see the abuser convicted.
My point is, whistleblowing/ reporting isn’t easy, can make your life very difficult, you are often told my senior managers that you are doing the wrong thing. Those consultants in the LL case should be commended for their tenacity.
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Yes at work I do believe I’d be disciplined for going above the Director of Nursings head. Id expect her to contact the police. Of course if I saw someone directly hurting someone I’d call the police in that situation but in the doctors situation I would go to whoever their trust said to go to. I’m sure as a teacher (assuming as you work in education), you would go report to your safeguarding lead first, not the police.

So they thought their jobs were more important than lives ?

Absolutely this.

No one's first thoughts will have been that these babies were being murdered, they will have thought they were dealing with an incompetent nurse, which is not something you'd be getting police involved with. The consultants did everything they could and should, have done at the time. People are making totally inappropriate judgements about them now based on hindsight and current knowledge.

This demonstrates how little understanding you have. Or perhaps just naivety.
Unless, of course, you are a hospital manager, board member or similar?

C-peptide is quite an unusual test to send, and a junior doctor may well not have appreciated the significance of it being low or normal in the presence of high insulin levels.

That doesn’t mean the junior doctor was incompetent, just junior and lacking in knowledge (which could be entirely appropriate to their level). It should have been flagged by the lab, and it was picked up by the consultant later.

I I'm not saying that. I'm saying that people making this into a story about poor NHS management is reductive and incorrect. Especially as it feeds into the rhetoric about NHS being more evil than an actual killer.

The actual questions that this raises, in my opinion, about the senior clinical management - and the key word here is clinical - is how did they get appointed to those positions and what actual management training have they received in their careers?

I said further down the thread that I am a senior clinical manager. I was a consultant for about 5 mins before being offered a role of Clinical Director of a rather important unit within my Trust (oncology). The recruitment process was lax to say the least. I had no experience in management and had no clue about what being a Clinical Director meant. I assumed that because I was a doctor and I'd been told how wonderful I was half my life and never struggled with anything, that I could wing it. It took an incident where an incompetent nurse was discovered doing some dangerous practice and came up against the Nursing Director who threatened to remove nurses from my unit that I realised I had no idea what I was doing. My non clinical team sorted the problem out for me, ran the investigation and dealt with the report and the contacting of the professional body. I just signed the letters and ate a lot of humble pie.

It seems to me that the director of nursing in this case was a similar type of person. So often these senior clinical roles are filled with people who are not competent or even safe clinically. However, by reducing arguments to "managers" what it is doing is highlighting the political dislike of non clinical managers and blaming them and this culture we have where all blame in the NHS is put on that group of professionals whilst nurses and doctors are put on a pedestal and allowed to get away with bullying, threats and unsafe practice.

What do you mean by a 'professional poster in the field'?