Merged: Concerns over baby killer ignored? / Nurse Lucy Letby killed babies in her care

[Ranb]

Doctor who helped catch Lucy Letby says 'babies could've been saved' if hospital acted sooner
https://www.itv.com/news/2023-08-18/...lames-hospital

Quote:

The doctor who helped catch child-killer Lucy Letby has told ITV News that babies' lives could have been saved if hospital bosses had contacted police sooner.

Dr Ravi Jayaram, who is a consultant paediatrician at the Countess of Chester Hospital, said he repeatedly raised concerns about his former colleague months before police were alerted.

In an exclusive interview, he has detailed to ITV News how executives at the top of the organisation at the time told him to “draw a line” under his suspicions and to apologize to Lucy Letby for his accusations.

Can hospital administrators be held responsible for their actions when one of their employees kills someone?

Quote:

Eventually, in April 2017 the trust allowed doctors to meet with a police officer who took their suspicions seriously.

"The police, after listening to us for less than 10 minutes, realised that this is something that they had to be involved with. I could have punched the air," Dr Jayaram said.

Shortly afterwards, an investigation was launched and Letby was eventually arrested.

The trust allowed doctors to meet with a police officer? What kind of power does the trust have anyway?

The article makes it seem like the hospital admin was valuing their reputations over the lives of babies. Am I missing something here?

Ranb

[trustbutverify]

If what I've been reading about the conduct of the administrators is true, these people are irredeemable monsters. The hospital should be sued into ash, and Ian Harvey needs to have his ass dragged back to the UK and locked up for the rest of his disgusting life.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by Ranb

Am I missing something here?

Ranb

Yes.

A politically-based public healthcare system isn't always better than a for-profit private system.

There will be Royal Commission set up to deal with this case as there was with Grenfell Towers and no doubt heads will roll. The Hillsborough tragedy confirms that no personal responsibility will be given, aside from the horror of naming names.

[trustbutverify]

Originally Posted by Ranb

The article makes it seem like the hospital admin was valuing their reputations over the lives of babies. Am I missing something here?

Ranb

If events unfolded as the whistle-blowers now contend, it seems almost as if the top administrators were practically co-conspirators. The parents of these murdered newborns must be out of their minds with rage.

[lionking]

The negligence of hospital management is breathtaking. I think manslaughter charges will be closely considered.

It would not surprise if more suspicious infant deaths are investigated.

[novaphile]

Originally Posted by trustbutverify

If events unfolded as the whistle-blowers now contend, it seems almost as if the top administrators were practically co-conspirators. The parents of these murdered newborns must be out of their minds with rage.

I would suggest, sympathetically, that they will be out of their minds with grief, rather than rage.

[lionking]

Originally Posted by novaphile

I would suggest, sympathetically, that they will be out of their minds with grief, rather than rage.

If it were me, it would definitely be both.

[Brainster]

Originally Posted by novaphile

I would suggest, sympathetically, that they will be out of their minds with grief, rather than rage.

Eight years later?

[Planigale]

Originally Posted by trustbutverify

If what I've been reading about the conduct of the administrators is true, these people are irredeemable monsters. The hospital should be sued into ash, and Ian Harvey needs to have his ass dragged back to the UK and locked up for the rest of his disgusting life.

Suing the hospital into ash will only harm the local people who are dependant on it and the many entirely innocent workers who provide local health care who had nothing to do with the neonatal unit. As a public hospital it is only the tax payer who will pay.

In any case under the UK compensation system dead babies do not result in large compensation payments, the large damages will be for any surviving but harmed babies.

The murderer has been convicted. Going after other individuals for negligence won't improve anything and may be harmful. As in other disasters it is more important to look forward and see what can be done to prevent something similar in the future, going after individuals actually avoids a system response.

[Planigale]

Originally Posted by Ranb

Doctor who helped catch Lucy Letby says 'babies could've been saved' if hospital acted sooner
https://www.itv.com/news/2023-08-18/...lames-hospital

Can hospital administrators be held responsible for their actions when one of their employees kills someone?


The trust allowed doctors to meet with a police officer? What kind of power does the trust have anyway?

The article makes it seem like the hospital admin was valuing their reputations over the lives of babies. Am I missing something here?

Ranb

It may be helpful to give a bit of background about how hospitals work. The modern hospital was created by Florence Nightingale, who also created the modern nursing profession. Historically the hospitals in Britain were very much managed by nurses, doctors were visitors. Junior doctors were on short term contracts and senior doctors were in private practice with admission rights. Nursing staff are in charge of wards, not doctors. Changes to wards happen with permission of the nursing hierarchy.

Hospital managers mostly come up trough the system, from a variety of backgrounds but almost never medical*. Administrative staff may be promoted into management (e.g. secretarial, HR, even PR), most often nurses end up in management, often finance people from the NHS finance departments will move sideways into general management. Very rarely are professional trained mangers employed. This is a long standing problem, the King's Fund was established to try and address this issue, there have been attempts at promoting executive MBA for health service staff, but due to the cost this usually is only available to senior mangers in post.

Then like many public organisations there are complex HR systems and rules, firing an individual is not easy short of criminal acts. Disciplinig doctors and nurses is easier through the professional regulating bodies. (One could ask whether Letby was reported to the Nursing Council.)

There has long been a call for professional standards in health service management, probably with required training. Managers who are incompetent could be reported to the professional standards body and then not eligible to just move into another job. This could mean that health service mangers had a statutory requirement to prioritise patient safety. At present patient safety issues are only addressed if they are an immediate issue, otherwise government targets e.g. waiting lists come first. A good example was that many older NHS hospitals lacked single room occupancy leaving them vulnerable to outbreaks of infection. This was a known issue.

*Doctors have a medical management system that is parallel to the rest of the NHS management system. This essentially manages doctors (and their treatment) and little else.

The result is that the nursing and general management hierarchy would feel that doctors should be sticking to managing doctors and not interfering with nursing management.

Quote:

We surveyed all NHS provider chief executives about their professional background and qualifications, and supplemented the findings with desktop based research. The combined results established that a third of chief executives (CEOs) hold a clinical qualification. Of these 78 CEOs, 63% trained as nurses, 19% trained as medical doctors, 4% trained as pharmacists and 11% as allied health professionals (AHPs).
The diversity of professional and education backgrounds among them – while welcome given the breadth of perspective and experience it offers – reinforces the absence of a well-worn path into NHS executive management roles. Clinical CEOs come from varied clinical backgrounds, with 42% from mental health (including psychiatry) and 12% trained in paediatrics. The majority of clinical CEOs also work in the same sector as their clinical specialty.

i.e. about 6% NHS CEO medical qualified.
https://nhsproviders.org/media/51849...morrow_web.pdf

https://www.employment-studies.co.uk...ief-executives

[Carrot Flower King]

What Planigale said above. The quality of NHS management is piss poor, speaking as a former senior nurse.

Also, the ignoring of anything approaching whistle-blowing by senior management is par for the course in the NHS. There is a long and ignoble history which is well documented and most of us have direct personal knowledge of these things.

There is a long tendency across the NHS not to involve the police in possible criminal matters: I have direct personal knowledge of staff being threatened with disciplinary action if they reported thefts and assaults to the police; Carrot Flower Queen, in her payroll days, exposed a long-standing set of frauds, which included blackmailing of some staff members, on one unit, which was never reported to the police - sadly one person who was involved in this and should have been sacked and prosecuted was later implicated in a patient death; I have been threatened by a charge nurse from the above unit as I subsequently employed the 2 staff nurses who blew the whistle on other incidents on that unit, and our management did not want to know and told me to STFU.

I could go on...

There is also a pattern of managers trying to do down medics: one of my managers actually said to me "We need to remove all power from the psychiatrists!". I have heard similar from across the country and wonder how much of this was actually soft signalled from the Department of Health, given the number of trust chief execs I know of who have gone on to work in the department.

This was all horrifyingly preventable.

In addition, the inquiry which Barclay announced will be toothless, as it lacks the power to compel witnesses and require them to testify under oath.

[Planigale]

Originally Posted by Carrot Flower King

What Planigale said above. The quality of NHS management is piss poor, speaking as a former senior nurse.

Also, the ignoring of anything approaching whistle-blowing by senior management is par for the course in the NHS. There is a long and ignoble history which is well documented and most of us have direct personal knowledge of these things.

There is a long tendency across the NHS not to involve the police in possible criminal matters: I have direct personal knowledge of staff being threatened with disciplinary action if they reported thefts and assaults to the police; Carrot Flower Queen, in her payroll days, exposed a long-standing set of frauds, which included blackmailing of some staff members, on one unit, which was never reported to the police - sadly one person who was involved in this and should have been sacked and prosecuted was later implicated in a patient death; I have been threatened by a charge nurse from the above unit as I subsequently employed the 2 staff nurses who blew the whistle on other incidents on that unit, and our management did not want to know and told me to STFU.

I could go on...

There is also a pattern of managers trying to do down medics: one of my managers actually said to me "We need to remove all power from the psychiatrists!". I have heard similar from across the country and wonder how much of this was actually soft signalled from the Department of Health, given the number of trust chief execs I know of who have gone on to work in the department.

This was all horrifyingly preventable.

In addition, the inquiry which Barclay announced will be toothless, as it lacks the power to compel witnesses and require them to testify under oath.

Certainly the Scottish Government see the medical profession as a barrier. Al least nominally NHS England wants to encourage the appointment of medically qualified Chief Executives. Managers are encouraged to aggressively mange medical. When medics raise issue the first response is 'it is just the doctors shroud waving again'.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by Planigale

Suing the hospital into ash will only harm the local people who are dependant on it and the many entirely innocent workers who provide local health care who had nothing to do with the neonatal unit. As a public hospital it is only the tax payer who will pay.

In any case under the UK compensation system dead babies do not result in large compensation payments, the large damages will be for any surviving but harmed babies.

The murderer has been convicted. Going after other individuals for negligence won't improve anything and may be harmful. As in other disasters it is more important to look forward and see what can be done to prevent something similar in the future, going after individuals actually avoids a system response.

I disagree. The buck stops at the top. The bosses have have to take responsibility for their own actions or inaction, as the case may be. Chief, Karen Rees, actually said she would take responsibility if she was wrong about rejecting the SEVEN highly specialised consultants' concerns and giving Letby the green light to carry on. Likewise, Eiran Powell, Alison Kelly (in charge of nursing), Ian Harvey, Stephen Cross, the NHS lawyer who warned against taking any action, and Tony Chambers, all of the Countess of Chester Hospital.

How is it harmful? The hospital is covered by indemnity.

[Vixen]

I once worked at the Brompton Hospital and Marsden as part of the Frimley Group. Whilst I was in Finance with the CIPFA crowd, there was one starry eyed person whose dream was to be a hospital administrator. This is as much a sought-after profession as is any other. The attraction as far as I could see was prestige and a fat salary. However, with leader ship comes responsibility. You are responsible for:

• the smooth running of operations
• setting and reaching targets
• forward planning and delivery of performance
• corporate culture
• handling and mitigating risk

Unfortunately, as we have seen in other public sectors* the bosses seem content to not rock the boat in anyway, seeing 'whistle blowers' as a mere nuisance. As we have seen, the seven consultants who urged Letby to be taken off nursing duty, were threatened with being reported to the GMC and actually forced to apologise to the murderer.

Yes, there was quite a culture of conflict within the hospital with consultants at loggerheads with the administrators - one was on garden leave for over three years - with all kinds of disputes going on.

In the case of embezzlement, malfeasance, expenses fiddling, yes, that can be brushed under the carpet and written off in the balance sheet. But what price patient safety, confidence and the destroyed lives of the rogue nurse's victims?

Anyone who has drawn up and carried out a risk assessment knows that it is possible to forecast and risk assess most eventualities one can think of, including professional medical liabilities, and 'acts of God', etc. However, how does it even cross one's mind that there might be a serial killer amongst the highly qualified specialist nurses. That is a curve ball factor. IMV the administrators appear to have failed to act once the risk was brought into view by seven on-the-job consultants.


*(cf the Post Office scandal and fat cat Venn sitting on millions of pounds of bonuses and pensions whilst sub-postmasters are still awaiting recompense for false convictions as a result of a faulty Horizon IT system of whcih Venn was fully aware)

[Vixen]

This thread is to do with the criminology of the case. Issues about how and why the NHS failed to prevent the crimes is discussed here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=367787


So, the sentencing of neonatal Nurse Lucy Letby, convicted of seven charges of murder and a further six of attempted murder is scheduled to happen tomorrow, Monday (21 August 2023). The only possible sentence according to statute is a whole life tariff, although it is possible Letby’s silk, Ben Myers KC, will argue mitigation such as diminished responsibility and the judge might defer sentencing for ‘further reports’. There is some outrage that convicted defendant has been allowed to refuse to turn up to face the music to hear her sentence and the impact statements of the victims. Some of the attempted murder charges overlap with the murder charges (for example, you can be guilty of both if they are on separate occasions). There were two verdicts of ‘Not Guilty’.

More details of the verdicts and charges can be found here on the Crown Prosecution Service webpage:
https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/lucy...mpted%20murder.

Where the eleven-man jury failed to reach a 10-1 verdict (whether of guilty or not guilty), this resulted in a hung jury and these were six of them. One includes Child K, which is the point Dr Jayaram, who gave testimony, and was one of the ‘gang of four’ doctors who pressed for Letby to be removed from the neonatal unit became convinced of her malevolence. Dr Jayaram testified he saw Letby standing by Baby K’s cot doing nothing despite K being in a state of collapse. The pathologist reported that K’s liver showed injuries consistent with those of someone having been in a serious car accident.
Thus the judge, Justice James Goss, will also have to decide whether to let CPS know whether they can have another 28 days to bring the six hung verdicts back for a new trial or whether to just ‘keep them on file’. Given that police are now reviewing 4,000 other cases, including Letby’s time in 2012 at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, these might well be tried again.

Justice Goss of the Kings Bench has a reputation as a hardline judge, thus his remarks in sentencing are likely to be vituperative and utterly eviscerating, given Letby’s refusal to attend*. Although, bear in mind judges are also supposed to exhibit mercy.

Why did she do it?

IMV – my observation only – Letby shows a peculiarly childlike aspect to her personality. Her ability to disassociate implies to me an early childhood trauma. Not saying it is anything like child abuse but her father seems a strong domineering figure in her life, even turning up to her grievance hearing at the hospital to provide a witness statement, whilst Lucy sat impassively. The father received an apology from the doctors who complained about his daughter as well as Letby herself. The father was present at her home the morning she was arrested, having stayed overnight after returning from holiday in Devon. In her twenties, Letby still holidayed with her parents, John and Susan, three times a year. After her arrest and police search he tidied up her bedroom. He had designed the duvet cover embossed with the words, ‘Sweet Dreams’.

During police interviews and the trial itself, Letby appeared disassociated from the accusations, remaining calm and collected. The only time she showed any emotion was when from behind a screen she head the voice of the registrar on whom she had crush, the prosecutor, silk Nick Johnson KC claimed, to give evidence against her, whereupon she tried to flee in tears and had to be persuaded back. She claimed not to know what ‘in commando’ meant. She claimed the married registrar was ‘just a friend’, as though she needed to keep up an air of girlish innocence. This is what makes me consider a halted point in her childhood psychology. Some psychologists believe that certain psychopaths became such because of arrested psychological development in childhood. For example, Mary Bell, a child killer aged 12, who showed no remorse, had been used by her prostitute mother for use by clients whilst still a toddler. One of the boys in the James Bulger murder came from a background of dire poverty and incest. Obviously, Letby is middle class and has devoted parents. But her strange lack of emotion and childishness, together with an ability to dissociate from unpleasant circumstance such as a stressful court room hearing leads me to suspect an arrested childhood development. An abused child will bear the pain by means of placing their mind and emotions elsewhere, as it were, for example seeing themselves floating above their body or outside of it. With Letby, this appears to involve an overbearing father, not dissimilar to writer Sylvia’s Plath’s predicament, who as you know, had a Daddy Complex resulting in a persistent impulse to commit suicide and eventually did so. In one of her scribbled notes, left for the police to find, Letby writes, ‘I do not deserve Mum and Dad’.

It is possible her parents realised Letby’s lack of empathy at an early age, hence all the girly décor with motivating slogans such as ‘sparkle’ and encouraging a career in care, with her father overseeing her career advancement. That is not to say he has done anything wrong and it might be the first time the parents have even become fully aware of what their daughter had got up to with her 'caring' qualifications and vocation.

*Although there is no effective way of enforcing attendance given the sentence is ‘Life’ already.

[jeremyp]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Yes.

A politically-based public healthcare system isn't always better than a for-profit private system.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "politically based" healthcare system. The NHS is public but it is not political in any sense.

Quote:

There will be Royal Commission set up to deal with this case as there was with Grenfell Towers and no doubt heads will roll. The Hillsborough tragedy confirms that no personal responsibility will be given, aside from the horror of naming names.

I remind you that the person responsible for these murders will be spending a long time in prison. She has been caught and she will answer for her crimes.

As for anybody else involved: well, I'd rather that we concentrated on finding out why the murders weren't detected much sooner and how to remedy the faults so that next time (and statistically there will be a next time) the murderer is stopped sooner.

Nobody set out here to cover up the murder of babies (except Ms Letby) just as nobody set out to murder Liverpool football fans at Hillsborough. What happened was incompetence and you can't eradicate incompetence by throwing the last person who demonstrated it into jail. That isn't going to deter the next incompetent person from being incompetent. It might, however, persuade them that they need to conceal their mistakes.

[Carrot Flower King]

Originally Posted by Planigale

Certainly the Scottish Government see the medical profession as a barrier. Al least nominally NHS England wants to encourage the appointment of medically qualified Chief Executives. Managers are encouraged to aggressively mange medical. When medics raise issue the first response is 'it is just the doctors shroud waving again'.

An aside, but the chief execs of my trust during my last decade in work (2003-13) were firstly a nurse by trade (I remember him from when he was a charge nurse and he was a twat then), then a finance bod, then someone who came up through the NHS graduate management scheme and lastly a medic. The medic was probably the worst of the lot, leaving us under a cloud only to re-surface later at 2 trusts whose subsequent difficulties mirrored those we'd had.

The first 2 of those enacted some controversial ideas and promptly buggered off to promotions at Quarry House.

The neighbouring acute trusts were led by a former accountant and someone who started as a management trainee in the 60s: one is partly seconded to the DoH and the other was sacked for gross misconduct, eventually.

[Planigale]

Originally Posted by jeremyp

I'm not sure what you mean by a "politically based" healthcare system. The NHS is public but it is not political in any sense.


I remind you that the person responsible for these murders will be spending a long time in prison. She has been caught and she will answer for her crimes.

As for anybody else involved: well, I'd rather that we concentrated on finding out why the murders weren't detected much sooner and how to remedy the faults so that next time (and statistically there will be a next time) the murderer is stopped sooner.

Nobody set out here to cover up the murder of babies (except Ms Letby) just as nobody set out to murder Liverpool football fans at Hillsborough. What happened was incompetence and you can't eradicate incompetence by throwing the last person who demonstrated it into jail. That isn't going to deter the next incompetent person from being incompetent. It might, however, persuade them that they need to conceal their mistakes.

[dirtywick]

Originally Posted by Vixen

I once worked at the Brompton Hospital and Marsden as part of the Frimley Group.

that's the most british bunch of names i've ever seen

[GlennB]

Originally Posted by Vixen

I once worked at the Brompton Hospital and Marsden as part of the Frimley Group.

Did the Royal Brompton switch? These days it's part of the Guy's and St Thomas' group. Just curious, as I lived down the road from the Frimley Park hospital and my children were born there. Why a central London hospital would be in the Frimley group is a mystery.

[Vixen]

Let's not take the focus away from Lucy Letby. But she wrecked the lives of more than just the infants and her own, the lives of the children's families were ruined. After the death of a second twin, doctors and nurses were crying on each other's shoulders, a particular father was heard crying in anguish. Yet, none of this moved Letby, who was seen standing impassively and was even said to have became animated and almost cheerful, as she approached parents in a room saying their last goodbyes, telling them that they could place their baby in a ventilation cot now, even whilst the child had not yet died. Smiling about how she'd given one baby her first bath and how much she enjoyed it. Knowing what we know now, she encroached like a vampire on other's grief, because that was probably the only time she was able to feel any emotion.

The judge has placed a ban on any of the victims being named but we can see that from earlier news which is still in the public domain, the father of the two triplets who were callously and determinedly murdered by Letby in 2015/6 appeared in court in 2019 charged with domestic abuse issues and driving whilst over the limit. In his defence he said he had got into an argument with his partner, the mother of the triplets, who had conceived them naturally, during which, she had poured his beer down the sink. This had enraged him, so he smashed up the washing machine, dishwasher and some cupboards and then driving off. He said he had turn to drink as self-medication because of the grief of his partner having lost two of their triplets.

There is the grief of his partner who gave birth to the triplets and there was a great deal of excitement at the Countess of Chester Hospital about this rare event. Then having to not only deal with her beloved triplets dying one after the other, with the third also attacked but who survived, but having to deal with a drunken and abusive partner who couldn't deal with the tragedy.

So multiply this level of personal sorrow and a distress over all of the thirteen or so directly affected families of her victims, not to mention the doctors and nurses involved in desperately trying to resuscitate them, it becomes clear where the true sympathy should lie.

Lucy Letby is a damaged individual, yes, but at any point she could have resigned her job or refrained for she surely knew the difference between right and wrong.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by GlennB

Did the Royal Brompton switch? These days it's part of the Guy's and St Thomas' group. Just curious, as I lived down the road from the Frimley Park hospital and my children were born there. Why a central London hospital would be in the Frimley group is a mystery.

The structure of the NHS national heart and chest hospitals has changed quite a lot since I was there in the 1980's. There was also a Thoracic unit, the name of which escapes me.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/common...ospitalFrimley

[GlennB]

Originally Posted by Vixen

The structure of the NHS national heart and chest hospitals has changed quite a lot since I was there in the 1980's. There was also a Thoracic unit, the name of which escapes me.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/common...ospitalFrimley

Cheers. No connection with the Royal Brompton it seems, except the name.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by jeremyp

I'm not sure what you mean by a "politically based" healthcare system. The NHS is public but it is not political in any sense.

Of course it is. Budgets, management and priorities are set by the government.

Originally Posted by jeremyp

I remind you that the person responsible for these murders will be spending a long time in prison. She has been caught and she will answer for her crimes.

Given that no sky-fairy exists, she will in no way "answer for her crimes".

Originally Posted by jeremyp

As for anybody else involved: well, I'd rather that we concentrated on finding out why the murders weren't detected much sooner and how to remedy the faults so that next time (and statistically there will be a next time) the murderer is stopped sooner.

That would be the point of a Commission of Inquiry, or whatever you have in UK that serves that purpose.

Originally Posted by jeremyp

Nobody set out here to cover up the murder of babies (except Ms Letby) just as nobody set out to murder Liverpool football fans at Hillsborough. What happened was incompetence and you can't eradicate incompetence by throwing the last person who demonstrated it into jail. That isn't going to deter the next incompetent person from being incompetent. It might, however, persuade them that they need to conceal their mistakes.

I'm not advocating any of them to be jailed - I was responding to lionking's assertion that manslaughter charges would be laid. They won't, and no criminal case for negligence will be prosecuted.

Whether anyone learns a lesson from it all is moot.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by GlennB

Cheers. No connection with the Royal Brompton it seems, except the name.

Brompton Hospital, in Old Brompton Road*, Chelsea, SW3, which is what we called it, was where I was based and this was where the centralised administration was carried out for the [Royal] Brompton Hospital, [Royal] Marsden Hospital the British Thoracic Institute (or similar name) and the Frimley Heart and Lung Hospital all came under the same umbrella of Frimley group of heart and lung hospitals. Total staff>4,000.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...?id=151&page=8

The later NHS Guys Trust was set up in 1993 some years later.

*Correction: actually off the Fulham Road.

[Skeptical Greg]

I apologize if I overlooked if this question was asked earlier, skimming through I didn't see it, but was there something that prevented the Dr./s from going directly to the police?

Where I'm at ( in the USA ) I'm breaking the law if I don't report suspected child abuse, much less murder.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Yes.

A politically-based public healthcare system isn't always better than a for-profit private system.

There will be Royal Commission set up to deal with this case as there was with Grenfell Towers and no doubt heads will roll. The Hillsborough tragedy confirms that no personal responsibility will be given, aside from the horror of naming names.

Agree

The Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven and the Birmingham Six were locked up for up to 17 years for bombings they had absolutely nothing to do with. The corrupt Policemen involved committed perjury in court and actively concealed exculpatory evidence.

Not a single one of those bent coppers was ever brought to account for what they did.

[novaphile]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Eight years later?

Yes, because it is new information about the death of their infant.

I would not be surprised if people were still getting bouts of grief 50 years later, and that's without finding out that your child had been murdered.

I'm still surprised about feelings of grief for the loss of my 'baby brother' who was stillborn, even though that happened more than fifty years ago, and wasn't even my child.

[Ranb]

I don't see how a civil action against the hospital administrators would change anything. Even a criminal action against a commissioner involved in the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes only resulted in a fine for his office.

You know how the saying goes, fines just mean it is legal for the rich; the price of doing business.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Eight years later?

Never underestimate the emotional staying power of grief. I just watched a documentary about the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling. He disappeared in 1989 from a rural town in Minnesota. It was revealed in 2015 that he was murdered about the time he was abducted but this was never clear until his murdered was finally charged and found guilty 27 years later in 2016.

In this 2019 documentary, 30 years later, his mother still chokes into tears when she talks about him. Losing a child to a murderer never goes away.

[zooterkin]

Originally Posted by Skeptical Greg

I apologize if I overlooked if this question was asked earlier, skimming through I didn't see it, but was there something that prevented the Dr./s from going directly to the police?

As I understand it, that's what they did do, after being forced to write a letter of apology to Letby.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...nd-baby-deaths

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ths-of-went-by

Quote:

Faced with the threat of disciplinary action, the doctors sent Letby a carefully worded apology on 28 February 2017. Their letter, which has been seen by the Observer, reads: “Dear Lucy. The increased mortality on the neonatal unit and subsequent reviews and re-designation of the neonatal unit has been very stressful time for all staff and parents. We understand that it has been an exceptionally stressful time for you.

“We would like to apologise for any inappropriate comments that may have been made during this difficult period. As you will be aware, emotions have run high. We are very sorry for the stress and upset that you have experienced in the last year. Please be reassured that patient safety has been our absolute priority during this difficult time.”

Less than three months later, after weeks of anguished meetings about how to prevent Letby from returning to work, Brearey and his colleagues contacted Cheshire police.

It was that meeting, on 27 April 2017, that triggered one of the biggest and most complex murder investigations of recent times in Britain.

Brearey’s colleague Jayaram said he “could have punched the air” when the now-retired detective chief superintendent, Nigel Wenham, listened to the consultants and said that their concerns were “something that [the police] have to be involved with”.

[Roger Ramjets]

Originally Posted by trustbutverify

If what I've been reading about the conduct of the administrators is true, these people are irredeemable monsters. The hospital should be sued into ash, and Ian Harvey needs to have his ass dragged back to the UK and locked up for the rest of his disgusting life.

This ridiculous hyperbole is not helping. We all know who the real monster was, and everyone else was a victim.

Yes, the system failed to stop her sooner, but it wasn't because anyone else involved in it was a monster. Clusters happen. If every nurse who had more than 2 patients die in their ward was accused of murder the backlash would be catastrophic.

There has to be a better way of preventing incidents like this from happening again than just demonizing the administrators and pretending it wouldn't have happened if they weren't 'monsters'. I don't know what the answer is, but it's not this.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Roger Ramjets

This ridiculous hyperbole is not helping. We all know who the real monster was, and everyone else was a victim.

Yes, the system failed to stop her sooner, but it wasn't because anyone else involved in it was a monster. Clusters happen. If every nurse who had more than 2 patients die in their ward was accused of murder the backlash would be catastrophic.

There has to be a better way of preventing incidents like this from happening again than just demonizing the administrators and pretending it wouldn't have happened if they weren't 'monsters'. I don't know what the answer is, but it's not this.

Yep, there is.

It should be against the law for any hospital, nursing home, aged care facility or other organization that administers medical care to the public to have a policy that...

a. Forbids its employees to report suspected cases of abuse, rape or murder directly to the Police.

b. Visits consequences of any kind on, or punishes those employees that do report cases of abuse, rape and murder to the Police.

This was a case of hospital administrators being more worried about making sure their own arses were covered, than about the possibility one of their staff was murdering patients. This is not the first time this sort of crap has happened in the UK Public Health system - I would have thought they would have learned that lesson after the Colin Norris debacle!

[Roger Ramjets]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

It should be illegal for any hospital, nursing home, aged care facility or other organization that administers medical care to the public to have a policy that...

a. Forbids its employees to report suspected cases of abuse, rape or murder directly to the Police.

b. Visits consequences of any kind on, or punishes those employees that do report cases of abuse, rape and murder to the Police.

Evidence of either of those things in this case?

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Roger Ramjets

Evidence of either of those things in this case?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...nd-baby-deaths

Lucy Letby’s colleagues were ordered to apologise to her after repeatedly raising concerns that the nurse may have been behind a series of unexplained baby deaths

According to two consultant paediatricians, in July 2016 a hospital executive said contacting the police would damage the hospital’s reputation and turn the neonatal unit into a crime scene, after one senior doctor recommended bringing in criminal investigators.

Doctors were told in early 2017 that Letby’s parents had threatened to refer them to the General Medical Council after her removal from the unit, according to internal documents.

Now, what do you think the hospital administrators response to any of those doctors would have been if any of them had gone direct to the Police with their concerns? Go on, have a guess - I'll wait?

[jeremyp]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Of course it is. Budgets, management and priorities are set by the government.



Given that no sky-fairy exists, she will in no way "answer for her crimes".



That would be the point of a Commission of Inquiry, or whatever you have in UK that serves that purpose.



I'm not advocating any of them to be jailed - I was responding to lionking's assertion that manslaughter charges would be laid. They won't, and no criminal case for negligence will be prosecuted.

Whether anyone learns a lesson from it all is moot.

Just because an organisation is funded by the government doesn’t make it political. It might make it a political football, but that’s not the same thing.

Lucy Letby is going to prison for murder. She is answering for her crimes.

[Planigale]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

Yep, there is.

It should be against the law for any hospital, nursing home, aged care facility or other organization that administers medical care to the public to have a policy that...

a. Forbids its employees to report suspected cases of abuse, rape or murder directly to the Police.

b. Visits consequences of any kind on, or punishes those employees that do report cases of abuse, rape and murder to the Police.

This was a case of hospital administrators being more worried about making sure their own arses were covered, than about the possibility one of their staff was murdering patients. This is not the first time this sort of crap has happened in the UK Public Health system - I would have thought they would have learned that lesson after the Colin Norris debacle!

There is a truism that difficult cases make bad law. This is clearly a very difficult case, it took years of police investigation to build a case and a very long trial to present the evidence, even so of 15 babies she was accused of killing she was only convicted of murdering seven. There is minimal physical evidence against her, most deaths were unexplained and remain so, they had to hypothesise that she killed them using aa method which would leave minimal evidence. Unusually for this type of serial killer she was not consistent in her method of killing. There was no smoking gun. At most the paediatricians would have had evidence of coincidence, that she was present on the ward when a number of unexpected deaths occurred. Clearly there was little support from the nursing hierarchy; that is something that needs to be explored.

The other route that the paediatricians had was referral to the coroner who could have carried out a judge led inquiry. There is a reluctance to do this as it might result in a post mortem, police possession of the body and is seen as distressing for the family.

I think that the paediatricians were presented with a rise in deaths in their unit and would have appeared to have been scapegoating a junior nurse. They were not forbidden from approaching the police and subsequently did so. What managers warned them about were the consequences of doing so. The threat of being reported to the GMC was not from management, but Letby's family.

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by Skeptical Greg

I apologize if I overlooked if this question was asked earlier, skimming through I didn't see it, but was there something that prevented the Dr./s from going directly to the police?

Where I'm at ( in the USA ) I'm breaking the law if I don't report suspected child abuse, much less murder.

If I may quote:
"...it doesn’t do for people, especially doctors, to go about ‘thinking’ things. They may get into frightful trouble."

"it may be part of your {a detective's] duty to have suspicions and invite investigation and generally raise hell for everybody, and if you’re mistaken nobody says much, beyond that you’re a smart, painstaking officer though a little over-zealous. But doctors, poor devils! are everlastingly walking a kind of social tight-rope. People don’t fancy calling in a man who’s liable to bring out accusations of murder on the smallest provocation.”

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Planigale

There is a truism that difficult cases make bad law. This is clearly a very difficult case, it took years of police investigation to build a case and a very long trial to present the evidence, even so of 15 babies she was accused of killing she was only convicted of murdering seven. There is minimal physical evidence against her, most deaths were unexplained and remain so, they had to hypothesise that she killed them using aa method which would leave minimal evidence. Unusually for this type of serial killer she was not consistent in her method of killing. There was no smoking gun. At most the paediatricians would have had evidence of coincidence, that she was present on the ward when a number of unexpected deaths occurred. Clearly there was little support from the nursing hierarchy; that is something that needs to be explored.

The other route that the paediatricians had was referral to the coroner who could have carried out a judge led inquiry. There is a reluctance to do this as it might result in a post mortem, police possession of the body and is seen as distressing for the family.

I think that the paediatricians were presented with a rise in deaths in their unit and would have appeared to have been scapegoating a junior nurse. They were not forbidden from approaching the police and subsequently did so. What managers warned them about were the consequences of doing so. The threat of being reported to the GMC was not from management, but Letby's family.

For once I do think fingers are being pointed at "management" rather too quickly, there wasn't as you say a smoking gun that was ignored.

Sometimes tragic events can point to weaknesses in procedures, for example it took the likes of Shipman's killings to tighten up recording of deaths etc. so I do think a report is called for because it may be that some changes to SOPs and so on could prevent something like this happening again.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by catsmate

If I may quote:
"...it doesn’t do for people, especially doctors, to go about ‘thinking’ things. They may get into frightful trouble."

"it may be part of your {a detective's] duty to have suspicions and invite investigation and generally raise hell for everybody, and if you’re mistaken nobody says much, beyond that you’re a smart, painstaking officer though a little over-zealous. But doctors, poor devils! are everlastingly walking a kind of social tight-rope. People don’t fancy calling in a man who’s liable to bring out accusations of murder on the smallest provocation.”

And I will add another related quote to this, from Joe Scott (Answers with Joe YT channel)

"The paradox of contingency: You never can know if you overreacted, but it's absolutely clear when you didn't do enough."