Could Lucy Letby have been stopped sooner? Look at the timeline – and NHS history (The Guardian, 18 August 2023)

Summary

We now know that Lucy Letby is a murderer, responsible for the deaths of seven babies and the attempted murders of six more. But as unimaginable as her crimes were, this verdict raises as many questions as it answers. Letby was not working in a vacuum. Could the killings at the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust have been stopped sooner? Did organisational failures cost the lives of babies who could have been protected? The timeline gives us a clue, writes Minh Alexander, a retired consultant psychiatrist and NHS whistleblower, in this Guardian opinion piece.

In June 2016, Letby’s hospital trust commissioned a review of neonatal care by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health after “concerns about increasing neonatal mortality”, which oddly did not feature a case-note review. This prevented detailed examination of the deaths, which should have been the prime objective. The college reported “extremely positive relationships” among staff but “remote” relationships with executives.

Astonishingly, the college’s report seemingly did not explicitly acknowledge a possibility of deliberate harm.

Nevertheless, the college raised concern that not all deaths were followed by postmortem investigations – as they should have been, according to guidelines – and that where postmortems did take place, they did not include systematic blood tests and toxicology. It noted concerns from obstetrics staff about four unexpected deaths.

In the coming days, there will be many questions. Why did it take so long for the hospital to refer matters to the police? Were doctors pressured not to persist with their concerns about Letby? How many trust board members knew there was a possibility of deliberate harm but failed to act?