Lucy Letby

[kkloo]

New thread as the last one has filled up.

Thanks for the reply! Which of the details do you think still add up to an iffy picture?

They spent years investigating Letby and have spent years on an inquiry assuming she murdered more babies. Did they ever investigate anyone else? Was the assumption natural causes or Letby only?

It sounds like the general medical care was very poor across the board for many of these babies in the unit and if someone higher up had admitted they weren’t coping maybe more would’ve survived at a better hospital which is the real scandal. Having experienced poor nhs maternity care myself and the lies and gaslighting that start before you’ve even got out of bed, everyone closing ranks seems pretty normal to me.

I don’t think anyone can say beyond reasonable doubt that the babies were murdered as the general medical care was so bad and the evidence against Letby is weak. I’m surprised how strong some people’s convictions are about this case - she was a bit intense and Evans said it was possible if a lot of highly implausible events happened without anyone noticing, some of which had never happened before.

The notes brought home will always seem odd to me...not the fact of bringing them home, but of keeping so many so long after they were relevant.

The ' I did this on purpose' writing. Yes, I get it could just have been stream of consciousness type outpourings, but then again it might not.

The insulin. Yes, the tests werent forensic/ perfect...but on the other hand they did seem to show insulin present. I know such sick babies present insulin differently , but even so, there was the possibility for the tests to show a different result than it did.

And also the fact that she seemed to want to be at the hospital so much. I get that people enjoy their jobs, but some of what I've read makes her sound so obsessive. And also the fact that she was called out on the quality and competence of some of some of her work and seemed particularly bothered by that as opposed to maybe just accepting she'd fucked up.

To be fair most of the handover sheets were not connected to her victims and just shoved in bags/bin bags. I don't know if she was a hoarder but keeping bags of rubbish is definitely something hoarders do.

I feel if there is any hint that the conviction is unsafe then a re trial is needed. I do not know if I think she is innocent either way but there is a question if she was given a fair trial and that has to be the key consideration here

Even when I thought Letby was guilty I was mystified by how much weight was put on ‘I am evil I did this’.

If the police had randomly raided her house then fair enough. But the police found it after years of hints and suggestions which tipped into downright accusations, then removal from the ward and a grievance.

It also said ‘I have done nothing wrong’ but that’s never mentioned. I honestly don’t understand why one statement is apparently totally factual and taken as read (oh, she said she did it, so she did) and the other is to be largely ignored but if acknowledged at all taken as the sign of a confused mind and stress.

Show me an NHS organisation that doesn’t have duty of candour policies, robust freedom to speak up arrangements, frameworks that prioritise a Just Culture and psychological safety, as well as clearly stated expectations on these from its board, then I’ll show you an organisation that’s going to bomb its next CQC Safe/Well Led inspections and will also quite possibly have restrictive undertakings slapped on it by NHSE.

I absolutely get that some organisations have failed badly at all of this, but it’s nonsense to suggest there is some sort of NHS-wide conspiracy of corruption. I have worked at board level for a number of different NHS orgs and I can assure you that I have never seen anything of the sort at any of them (nor would I have stood by and just let it happen if I ever did).

Obviously, all the policies in the world are only as effective as the organisational culture they sit within, and these systems are ultimately reliant on individuals doing the right thing. For what it’s worth, one of the reasons I feel so strongly about the way the Letby miscarriage of justice claims are playing out, is because I can see how damaging it is to building these cultures of candour and speaking up. Professional reputations (eg the consultants, but plenty of others too) are being blithely trashed in a very public and not remotely evidenced way and I can see how it will make people think twice about speaking up if they think there might be a problem in their own service.

I would be fascinated to know if any of the professionals who’ve been the subject of some of the entirely baseless accusations I’ve seen are taking legal action in the background. I think I would be if I were them.

So are you saying that Nottingham and Shrewsbury didn’t happen? That they were transparent and honest places and any tragic events were purely down to bad luck or perhaps inexperience or some such benign act but not corruption and cover ups, no. Why, there are policies!

Because we both know that is bollocks, to express myself rather more bluntly than is characteristic.

Whether she is guilty or not Letby’s case is a mirror of what’s been going on in our nhs, particularly regarding maternity and neonatal care. Either a nurse was able to murder babies in plain sight, largely unnoticed and unremarked upon for years, such was the level of chaos, or the hospital was so chaotic deaths happened and tragedies occurred.

How anyone can argue that corruption hasn’t been taking place I don’t know, even if you are convinced she was guilty. If she was guilty, if she was murdering babies or trying to at the rate of roughly one per month, doesn’t that raise some pretty serious concerns about the hospital as an institution? I rather think it does.

We need better ways to help people speak up about problems with their services. And we need better responses when they do. But that doesn't mean silencing discussion of problems with their services.

There is copious evidence of problems with Chester's neonatal services, from failings documented at inquest to multiple points in the RCPCH report. I am not a fan of trying to pin these failings on individuals and to lambast them for it. We don't know what pressures these people were under, what resources they requested and were denied, how heavy their commitments were outside the neonatal unit - bearing in mind that the bulk of the consultants' responsibilities elsewhere.

Unfortunately, however, once a criminal case is opened, contingent events do become a matter of public concern. That's all the more true when they have a bearing on public health. The same applies to legal inquiries. While your comments are a useful reminder not to turn from one witch-hunt to another, it is not reasonable to expect that people sit in silence and swallow narratives from Chester Police and Liz Hull as ever more indications of failings at Chester emerge.

If there's one thing everyone can agree on regardless of views on her guilt, it's that she won't be nursing again. Even if fully exonerated tomorrow. She's off the register, not sure she could take the practical steps necessary to go back on and no hospital could realistically employ her if she did, if nothing else the weirdos and gawpers would ensure she'd be more trouble than she was worth.

So you don't need to worry about that!

That's true, I wouldn't want to work in nursing anyway if I was found not guilty, why would you. Maybe the medical staff and managers will never work again if found guilty or negligence or, as suspected, be promoted or moved sideways with massive payoffs.