Letby: Could tech help detect NHS staff deliberately harming patients? (Digital Health, 7 September 2023)

Summary

The horrifying case of neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital, has raised hard questions for NHS leaders about how organisations respond to concerns about staff, but could digital systems help detect NHS staff who harm patients at an earlier point?

If the pattern connecting Letby to the babies’ deaths had been detected by a digital system, would the response from the trust have been different? Would a machine have been believed?   

Alison Leary, chair of healthcare and workforce modelling at London South Bank University and a leading expert on nursing and data, suggests there is potentially a much bigger role for digital in patient safety.