Three members of Lucy Letby hospital senior leadership team arrested.

[MissJoGrant]

Story here:

It isn’t shocking really. What’s shocking is that it’s not happened sooner. Why did so many babies die before anyone got suspicious?

Surely a strong defence lawyer has a very good starting point for LL’s conviction to be re-evaluated. What a mess.

Healthcare investigations are typically extremely complex. One does have to remember that everything is taking place on a background of staff shortages, enormous budget cuts, transient staffing, ever changing bureaucracy. It’s not just a matter of “the management are to blame” - there’s multifaceted issues at all levels. Things are never as straightforward as they appear to be

This kind of talk drives me nuts. This idea that senior managers are evil bureaucrats wanting to cover stuff up (why? they are WELL AWARE that corporate manslaughter is a risk in their work)

Sorry I have personal experience of NHS staff lying to cover their arses.

The whistle blower in the Alderhay baby heart scandal was unable to get a job again in the NHS and had to move to Australia to be able to keep working as a doctor.

I have seen, after yet another hospital scandal, an hospital official being sent out to reporters, not to apologise and say how they would change to avoid this happening in the future, but instead to read out a statement about all the brilliant care the hospital provided ( not to the young man who died as a result of failings obviously, but he's just one man, a mere blip after all). The callous lack of regard to the family was appalling. And that was not off the cuff, that was a statement someone actually thought about, wrote down, and read out. It tells you everything about the culture.

The NHS is notorious for this.

Well not really - it indicates that the defense have been able to find some medical experts who disagree with the findings of the medical experts the prosecution used.

That's exactly my take on it also.

Perhaps nursing clinicians promoted to management grades, without the experience or training in how to be tough on staff who used to be your immediate colleagues. A warped sense of loyalty to former grades maybe.

In my experience, clinicians turned managers have been moved into management because they are shit at being clinicians.

Precisely this.

It was clear that there was a problem. They were aware that the rate of deaths was too high.

They didn't act to resolve this.

Instead they pretended there wasn't a problem and were obstructive.

This ultimately lead to more incidents.

The safeguarding procedures failed and were not acted upon appropriately.

The cause of this this could have been anything. It just happened it was a murderer. But it could have been faulty equipment. Or poor procedures. Or a member of staff who had been badly trained and was doing something wrong but not with malicious intent.

The point is they acted to try and cover up the issue not address it, because they prioritised their careers / the reputation of the hospital over the lives of those in their care.

More very very well paid hospital executives need to be held account for not dissimilar issues. If you have that responsibility you should be taking it seriously centring patients rather than hospitals.

Agree the possibility that one of them might offer this defence, if charged, cant be ruled out at this stage. Which isn't to say it would be true, or that they'd wrongly believe it to be true. But it's within the range of possibilities.

Easily. Totally Unrelated issues
This relates to duty of care. SLT had a responsibility to maintain safe clinical governance and act upon reports of risk and/or practitioner LL reported to be unsafely practising.
The SLT will be asked to account for their actions regard duty of care
prosecution need to demonstrate (amongst other things) the breach of care directly led to neonate deaths

I agree. I have had multiple experiences of multiple different doctors from different departments and hospitals calmly and confidently lying to my face. It's terrifying actually that our lives are in their hands.

I understand they are human so can't know everything and will make mistakes. What I don't understand is why they can't admit to not knowing something or admit to making a mistake?

You really haven't been paying attention to any of the maternity scandals have you?

There is clearly evidence of this. There's papertrails. Some of it is really appalling.

There should be a few other executive managers around the country who are sweating on this news...

They couldn’t do this though. They’re being arrested because the they didn’t investigate the suspiciously high number of deaths. It doesn’t matter what the outcome of that investigation would have been. Whether or not Letby is guilty has no impact on their failures.

It’s actually sickening reading these posts.

The investigation for manslaughter, is because senior leaders, told about the suspicions of Lucy and the babies dying in her care….did nothing. Zero.

It’s NOT because Lucy is innocent. She killed those babies. She got away with it because so many gullible fools thought that a mousy, plain girl next door type couldn’t possibly do such a thing. So she continued to kill more and more.

This 100%. But even if she is freed, her life is in ruins. I can only hope that she eventually gets a massive Netflix contract.

No, most people are discussing today's news that three managers at the hospital have been charged with gross negligence manslaughter, as per the title of the thread.

For some reason the OP posted an older, unrelated article in her opening post which is causing some confusion.

The horror of the possibility of small chance (?) LL really is innocent is looming a bit larger. ‘I did this’ not literally but because she was slowly gaslit by unimaginable stress, incompetence & chaos.

Ahhhh thank you.

Very true

You are talking with your feelings. Not with facts.

It's hardly unrelated is it.
It's all hugely relevant.
A senior doctor at her trial lied in court.

Agreed. The perversity in refusing to concede this woman is guilty is extremely disturbing.

I wonder if one of them is the consultant who claims to have see LL up to no good, but did nothing about it.

This isn’t correct. Two people can be charged with murder and manslaughter of the same person, it’s to do with culpability. In this case Letby can be guilty of murder whilst management is also guilty of manslaughter because of their actions or more likely, their lack of actions.

For complicity they need to have the same ‘mental state’ as needed for the crime, so for complicity to murder they would need to be aware of it for a start as well as acting with malice and with the intention needed for murder.

Are people not referring to the causal nexus, ie if their argument is the failure to investigate didnt cause the deaths? That was how I read it, apologies if that isn’t the point that was being made.