Leading British officials have conceded that they failed to act timeously or make known their initial concerns and suspicions about killer nurse Lucy Letby, with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, responsible for a key report used by managers to exonerate Letby, confessing to mistakes it had made at the time.
An inquiry that started last week heard that babies’ breathing tubes were dislodged at a significantly higher rate while Letby was working as a trainee nurse, with an audit of incidents at Liverpool Women’s Hospital showing that this happened on 40% of her shifts. Usually it would occur only on 1% of nurse shifts.
Letby trained at the hospital in Liverpool and completed two placements in 2012 and then in 2015, before she went on her killing spree at the Countess of Chester Hospital, reports The Independent.
Earlier this year, a jury found her guilty at retrial of attempting to murder Child K by deliberately dislodging her breathing tube in February 2016.
Speaking on the third day of the new inquiry, barristers Peter Skelton KC and Richard Baker KC spoke on behalf of the families of Letby’s victims and criticised those supporting “conspiracy theories” over her innocence.
“Everybody who recklessly promotes conspiracy theories or who parrots, without questioning, the same tired misconceptions about this case, should be ashamed of themselves,” Baker said.
During his opening statement, he revealed the audit of incidents at Liverpool Women’s Hospital where Letby did placements between October and December 2012 and January to February 2015.
Later in 2015, Letby committed five murders and attempted to kill three other babies.
Skelton slammed those questioning her innocence, many of whom had not sat through the trial.
He said: “There are … questions in some quarters that Letby may be the unlucky victim of a miscarriage of justice… those raising those questions would not have been present at her trials and so, unlike the juries that convicted her, are not in a position to weigh up the evidence.
“Letby was not convicted on the basis of questionable statistics but the factual and expert medical evidence demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that she had harmed the children.”
No warning
Failures by the Countess of Chester Hospital’s chief nurse Alison Kelly to warn the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) of the seriousness of concerns about Letby were also uncovered.
The NMC’s barrister Samantha Jones said that in July 2016, Kelly had told the Council “there was not sufficient evidence to initiate a referral” of Letby.
Jones said Kelly had initially told the NMC about the rising neonatal mortality rates and concerns that Letby might present a risk to public safety, “but we were told there was no evidence then.. to support those concerns”.
However, she also said the NMC had failed to put in an interim order sanction against Letby after her arrest.
“We accept it was not right for the NMC to wait to apply for an interim order until Letby was charged… given the concerns and importance of maintaining public safety and also public confidence in the profession.”
Kelly is currently facing a fitness to practise investigation.
Two reports
In its statement, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health admitted to major errors it had made at the time.
The inquiry was told that there were two versions of the review report, a confidential one referencing allegations against Letby, and another one received by families in which these had these removed.
The RCPCG apologised for not sharing the unredacted report with paediatricians and said it should have recommended that police and other regulators be called.
Another spotlight
The inquiry, which started on 10 September, aims to cast a fresh look at the case in which Letby was found guilty of killing seven infants, and trying to kill seven others between 2015 and 2016.
She was sentenced to life in prison last year and her requests for appeals have so far been denied. But questions about the handling of the investigation and the evidence have been circulating.
Under the terms of its mandate, the inquiry will not scrutinise those questions. Instead the new hearings are to probe the experiences of the families of the babies who died and the conduct of nurses, doctors, and other health workers at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Led by Kate Thirlwall, an appeals court justice, the inquiry aims to determine “whether suspicions should have been raised earlier, whether Lucy Letby should have been suspended earlier, and whether the police or other external bodies should have been informed sooner about suspicions about her”.
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UK nurse pleads not guilty to murder of 8 babies and attempted murder of 10 more