UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #2

[JuicyLucy]

The prosecution have never said there was any "interaction". Searching for publicly available information on someone that they have themselves made public is not criminal nor remotely unethical.

I think it is unethical for medical personnel, and is certainly unprofessional. But I also suspect it's quite commonplace in this day and age, and for someone in the sort of role LL had I can imagine that it could be a coping mechanism. Especially given that many of the babies in that unit were multiples, I can see that checking out the parents' social media to look at pictures of a happy, healthy, surviving twin might well help you feel less sad about the twin who died while under your care.

Of course the devil is in the detail, isn't it - whose social media she accessed and whose she didn't, how often and how long for, how soon or long after the deaths, whether she 'liked', commented or made contact, etc, etc. There's a long, long haul to go with the prosecution's evidence, which is deliberately pitched to sound damning. It will probably be the new year before we hear the other side of things.

JMO

 

[JuicyLucy]

On a different note, is anyone else a bit sceptical about the wide variety of murder methods? So far there's injections of air down a tube into their circulation, insulin through a feeding bag, feeding too much milk and pumping air down a tube into their stomachs. Normally a silent killer like this tends to stick to a single method and some of these methods don't strike me as something you can hide easily.

Yes, I thought that too. I would expect such a killer either to stick to one method, or to 'graduate' from one to another, perhaps if the original method had too high a failure rate, or after a near-miss with getting caught, for example.

But the two incidents in which babies were supposed to have suffered an insulin overdose were approximately 9 months apart (F in summer 2015 and L in spring 2016), with a range of different types of incident before, between and after. For me, it does reinforce the sense that anything a bit odd has (a) been blamed on LL if she was present and (b) if the baby survived been characterised as a murder attempt - but also only if she was present.

I think we really ought to hear at some point about other deaths and unusual near-miss presentations that occurred when LL was not present - but with no letters of the alphabet having been allotted to other babies in advance, I'm not altogether confident that we will.

JMO

 

[Whitehall 1212]

A well-written post Supernovae! I'd like to point out a similar reasoning was followed in the Lucia de Berk's case. Deaths were only considered suspicious if Lucia was on duty, while similar unexplained deaths when she wasn't on duty were not. When asked about why those deaths weren't considered suspicious a doctor or investigator (I have forgotten who it was) outright said "Because Lucia wasn't on duty." Baffling logic really...

On a different note, is anyone else a bit sceptical about the wide variety of murder methods? So far there's injections of air down a tube into their circulation, insulin through a feeding bag, feeding too much milk and pumping air down a tube into their stomachs. Normally a silent killer like this tends to stick to a single method and some of these methods don't strike me as something you can hide easily.

Thoughts for the variety of methods:

1. Deliberate variation to introduce an external belief of random deaths. This would be cool planning of a very calm and methodical killer.

2. Variety because there is no intent to cause harm, but unidentified error in LL's clinical process.

3. Natural deaths and a case of confirmation bias in respect of LL, in respect of the deaths/critical incidents that she is accused of.

4. Other external influences: other staff/management issues/compromised equipment etc

 

[Gardenista]

I had to make a spreadsheet to keep all of the Husel "victims" and witnesses straight. Since the trial is not streamed, I'm hoping a media outlet will do that on this case.

 

[ZaZara]

Thank you all for reporting, commenting and offering insights.

I am trying to let Day 1 of the trial sink in. Sofar, IMO, it seems that what would be considered errors or near-misses under normal circumstances, and natural reactions of the bodies of very young and sick children, has turned into murder and attempted with Lucy Letby as the sole perpetrator. Because, apparently, she was always there when it happened.

Not only was Lucy Letby omnipresent, she also used a number of methods for her sinister deeds that happen to coincide with common errors or lack of knowledge of tiny bodies. And if she did not succeed, she simply tried again, up to three times. (This makes me wonder if she got any better at it- was there a so called learning curve?)

This case reminds me too much of the trial of Lucia de Berk and that worries me greatly.

In Thread 1, I quoted the Advocate General in the Lucia de Berk case:

One of the most striking things in this connection is a remark in the indictment of the Advocate General for the Court of Appeal in The Hague.

'While cases on an individual basis are perhaps doomed to end in a narrow acquittal, when viewed together they should lead to a conviction.'[7]

UK - Healthcare worker arrested on suspicion of murder/attempted murder of a number of babies, 2018

The burden of proof is in the Prosecution and it is a heavy burden indeed.

 

[ConcernedThirdParty]

Long-time lurker, finally created an account to clarify some things around timeline that I haven't seen anyone mention...

Pre-2013 - ? deaths per year
2013/2014 - 2/3 deaths per year
2015/2016 - 8/6 deaths per year (14 between consecutive Junes but not evenly spaced)
- on this basis alone, this is still consistent with a random sequence, number can only go as low as 0, but occasional clusters to be expected - if any previous years were higher than 2/3 it supports this more.
- whatever the case, at some point well before the 14th death alarm bells were ringing.
sometime in 2016 after June - LL moved to non-clinical role it seems
- I'm fairly sure after June 2016 various interim measures were put in place while the RCPCH was carrying out its review diverting sicker babies elsewhere which could equally account for the reduction in deaths if it even needs accounting for (and it's not just a random cluster).
early 2017 - RCPCH review concluded, recommendations made
- RCPCH review mentions that CCTV was installed in the neonatal unit and this caused upset with the nurses to whom it appears to have been a surprise, and I think would be interpreted as a lack of trust from those in authority - and because they had to explain it to parents who probably also interpreted the same.
- So it seems that before the end of 2016, the senior staff were concerned enough about negligence, incompetence or malice to have CCTV installed.
May 2017 - after receiving the report from RCPCH, CoCH refers 8 deaths to the police.
- It seems fairly certain that prior to May 2017, internal investigations had identified LL as a common denominator in 8 of the 14 deaths and referred them to police - which mean the police investigation would have started with LL as a suspect identified by the hospital.
- Why were the other 6 not included? Were they less unexpected? Were they suspicious of those 8 cases specifically? Or suspicious of LL specifically but she could only be responsible for those 8? Or was 8 out of 14 the most any individual nurse was on shift for and that led them to LL?
- I'd also wonder if any nurses joined or left during this time? Someone could have been around for all the deaths up until Dec 2015 and then changed role - you may be the only person around for multiple incidents because you're one of the few consistent members of staff over the period in question.
Jul 2018 arrest 1 released police bail
Jul 2019 arrest 2 released police bail
Nov 2020 charged and held on remand until present.

From what we heard presented today, and what we know of the timeline and the RCPCH review - it doesn't seem like anyone suspected anything amiss at the time with Children A + B - but much later came to the conclusion that this was an air embolism when looking for possible methods, likely once it was established they were looking for a possible serial killer. And this will be the story with most of the babies until the last few when people were getting concerned and looking harder for causes.

It does seem like she's the only nurse that was on shift for these 7 deaths and 15 other non-fatal collapses and no other nurse comes close - but what about when we consider the other 7 deaths and presumably at least another few non-fatal collapses that must be out there? If we got to LL because she was the only one on shift for these 7 deaths, but we're only considering these 22 charges and ignoring as many others because LL couldn't be responsible - that's circular reasoning.

Other points that have come up:
- Night shifts and days shifts - I don't know of any nurse working exclusively night shifts for a protracted period. Nurses typically work a few days on a few days off with no repeating pattern, they find out their shifts a few weeks in advance, they'll generally work 3 or 4 night shifts in a row and then a few days off and then day shifts, or more night shifts, it varies. So this is a double counting thing, if we're saying she was the only nurse on shift for all 22 incidents, it doesn't add anything to say that the incidents that happened when she was on night shift happened at night and the ones that happened when she was on day shift happened during the day. It is definitely not, they noticed incidents at night and they suspected LL so they moved her to day shifts and the incidents followed her - that's a very different thing.

- Facebook stalking multiple people in succession who are linked by some common theme is not unusual (e.g. I'll sometimes think of someone I used to work with, then look up other past colleagues - so if you say looked up the parents of that poor baby who died last year, is it a stretch to think you immediately look up the parents of the other baby that died and the other one) and not a data protection issue to remember people's names.

- I think it's odd to just happen to have the handover sheet from the day when Child B nearly died 3 years ago - on the other hand I'd imagine the day after Child A died, it would be a pretty overwhelming time for anyone innocent, and that upon realising you still had the handover sheet from the day you saved the other twin, you might not throw it away.

- Select answers from 3 days of interviews about events that happened 2 or 3 years ago may look incriminating but bear in mind the prosecution is only interested in the lines that could look incriminating.

- Likewise, the prosecution will only use the experts who support their case, they may well have obtained opinions from other experts that did not support their case.

- Lots of small details look suspicious now (LL doing blood gases for a baby not under her care) but everything has been put under intense scrutiny by a team of people looking for any evidence of anything incriminating for several years. If you took one of the other nurses there and subjected her work to the same scrutiny, you'd almost certainly be able to turn up any number of things that look suspicious out of context, long after most people remember the context, stuff they usually don't think twice about.

All that said - if I had to put money on whether she did it... I'd rather hold on to my money for the moment and hear at least both openings.

 

[Whitehall 1212]

Long-time lurker, finally created an account to clarify some things around timeline that I haven't seen anyone mention...

Pre-2013 - ? deaths per year
2013/2014 - 2/3 deaths per year
2015/2016 - 8/6 deaths per year (14 between consecutive Junes but not evenly spaced)
- on this basis alone, this is still consistent with a random sequence, number can only go as low as 0, but occasional clusters to be expected - if any previous years were higher than 2/3 it supports this more.
- whatever the case, at some point well before the 14th death alarm bells were ringing.
sometime in 2016 after June - LL moved to non-clinical role it seems
- I'm fairly sure after June 2016 various interim measures were put in place while the RCPCH was carrying out its review diverting sicker babies elsewhere which could equally account for the reduction in deaths if it even needs accounting for (and it's not just a random cluster).
early 2017 - RCPCH review concluded, recommendations made
- RCPCH review mentions that CCTV was installed in the neonatal unit and this caused upset with the nurses to whom it appears to have been a surprise, and I think would be interpreted as a lack of trust from those in authority - and because they had to explain it to parents who probably also interpreted the same.
- So it seems that before the end of 2016, the senior staff were concerned enough about negligence, incompetence or malice to have CCTV installed.
May 2017 - after receiving the report from RCPCH, CoCH refers 8 deaths to the police.
- It seems fairly certain that prior to May 2017, internal investigations had identified LL as a common denominator in 8 of the 14 deaths and referred them to police - which mean the police investigation would have started with LL as a suspect identified by the hospital.
- Why were the other 6 not included? Were they less unexpected? Were they suspicious of those 8 cases specifically? Or suspicious of LL specifically but she could only be responsible for those 8? Or was 8 out of 14 the most any individual nurse was on shift for and that led them to LL?
- I'd also wonder if any nurses joined or left during this time? Someone could have been around for all the deaths up until Dec 2015 and then changed role - you may be the only person around for multiple incidents because you're one of the few consistent members of staff over the period in question.
Jul 2018 arrest 1 released police bail
Jul 2019 arrest 2 released police bail
Nov 2020 charged and held on remand until present.

From what we heard presented today, and what we know of the timeline and the RCPCH review - it doesn't seem like anyone suspected anything amiss at the time with Children A + B - but much later came to the conclusion that this was an air embolism when looking for possible methods, likely once it was established they were looking for a possible serial killer. And this will be the story with most of the babies until the last few when people were getting concerned and looking harder for causes.

It does seem like she's the only nurse that was on shift for these 7 deaths and 15 other non-fatal collapses and no other nurse comes close - but what about when we consider the other 7 deaths and presumably at least another few non-fatal collapses that must be out there? If we got to LL because she was the only one on shift for these 7 deaths, but we're only considering these 22 charges and ignoring as many others because LL couldn't be responsible - that's circular reasoning.

Other points that have come up:
- Night shifts and days shifts - I don't know of any nurse working exclusively night shifts for a protracted period. Nurses typically work a few days on a few days off with no repeating pattern, they find out their shifts a few weeks in advance, they'll generally work 3 or 4 night shifts in a row and then a few days off and then day shifts, or more night shifts, it varies. So this is a double counting thing, if we're saying she was the only nurse on shift for all 22 incidents, it doesn't add anything to say that the incidents that happened when she was on night shift happened at night and the ones that happened when she was on day shift happened during the day. It is definitely not, they noticed incidents at night and they suspected LL so they moved her to day shifts and the incidents followed her - that's a very different thing.

- Facebook stalking multiple people in succession who are linked by some common theme is not unusual (e.g. I'll sometimes think of someone I used to work with, then look up other past colleagues - so if you say looked up the parents of that poor baby who died last year, is it a stretch to think you immediately look up the parents of the other baby that died and the other one) and not a data protection issue to remember people's names.

- I think it's odd to just happen to have the handover sheet from the day when Child B nearly died 3 years ago - on the other hand I'd imagine the day after Child A died, it would be a pretty overwhelming time for anyone innocent, and that upon realising you still had the handover sheet from the day you saved the other twin, you might not throw it away.

- Select answers from 3 days of interviews about events that happened 2 or 3 years ago may look incriminating but bear in mind the prosecution is only interested in the lines that could look incriminating.

- Likewise, the prosecution will only use the experts who support their case, they may well have obtained opinions from other experts that did not support their case.

- Lots of small details look suspicious now (LL doing blood gases for a baby not under her care) but everything has been put under intense scrutiny by a team of people looking for any evidence of anything incriminating for several years. If you took one of the other nurses there and subjected her work to the same scrutiny, you'd almost certainly be able to turn up any number of things that look suspicious out of context, long after most people remember the context, stuff they usually don't think twice about.

All that said - if I had to put money on whether she did it... I'd rather hold on to my money for the moment and hear at least both openings.

Welcome @ConcernedThirdParty,

It's great to have you on board, particularly with such insightful content

 

[Nellie Nelson]

Phew, finally caught up!

Thanks to everyone who has contributed thus far to this case and this thread. Your questions/comments and responses to them have been very helpful.

There are a number of people contributing who seem to have professional experience relevant to this case, and I have thus far found their contributions particularly helpful.

This case is going to go on for some months, and many more people are likely to start showing an interest. I know this is a bit cheeky, but could the professionals/retired professionals who are not yet 'verified' please consider becoming so?

 

[branmuffin]

I don't think the hospital trust did do their own review? They commissioned the RHPC to do an independent clinical review in 2016 as to why the mortality rates were increasing. Not what the cause was of baby deaths. Point being, they couldn't do their own review so needed an independent body to do it for them - who would only look at processes and procedures, staffing levels etc as no one would have thought murder was a possible hypotheses (would not have been the scope of review).

The hospital didn't do post mortems at the time of baby deaths (which the RHPC did note - so those results weren't available for them), but post mortems aren't always standard practice unless there's a reason to be suspicious. And single deaths would not be suspicious, it's only when it was all put together it was suspicious. But first the RHPC review had to rule out any possible operational or obvious negligence problems, then the police come in to do a criminal investigation where it's possible forensic evidence was collected by independent clinicians they commissioned. Not sure many trusts jump straight into criminal intent as the first step in an enquiry.

Hospital probe report after death rate rise for high risk babies

Hospital ordered review into greater number of deaths than it would normally expect

www.cheshire-live.co.uk

I am not familiar with the processes that the UK incorporates to investigate an increase in neonatal deaths but I would think they saw anomalies that were outside the norm. So it's bit disingenuous to start an independent investigation completely ignoring the issue of malign purpose. They already knew that the deaths in 2015 were outside the norm and the 2016 deaths were an indication that they were increasing.

How can police investigators jump to criminal intent without evidence collected by the hospital? They have no evidence. There were no tests for toxicology, blood sugar and blood electrolytes.

 

[Kaykedi]

Long-time lurker, finally created an account to clarify some things around timeline that I haven't seen anyone mention...

Pre-2013 - ? deaths per year
2013/2014 - 2/3 deaths per year
2015/2016 - 8/6 deaths per year (14 between consecutive Junes but not evenly spaced)
- on this basis alone, this is still consistent with a random sequence, number can only go as low as 0, but occasional clusters to be expected - if any previous years were higher than 2/3 it supports this more.
- whatever the case, at some point well before the 14th death alarm bells were ringing.
sometime in 2016 after June - LL moved to non-clinical role it seems
- I'm fairly sure after June 2016 various interim measures were put in place while the RCPCH was carrying out its review diverting sicker babies elsewhere which could equally account for the reduction in deaths if it even needs accounting for (and it's not just a random cluster).
early 2017 - RCPCH review concluded, recommendations made
- RCPCH review mentions that CCTV was installed in the neonatal unit and this caused upset with the nurses to whom it appears to have been a surprise, and I think would be interpreted as a lack of trust from those in authority - and because they had to explain it to parents who probably also interpreted the same.
- So it seems that before the end of 2016, the senior staff were concerned enough about negligence, incompetence or malice to have CCTV installed.
May 2017 - after receiving the report from RCPCH, CoCH refers 8 deaths to the police.
- It seems fairly certain that prior to May 2017, internal investigations had identified LL as a common denominator in 8 of the 14 deaths and referred them to police - which mean the police investigation would have started with LL as a suspect identified by the hospital.
- Why were the other 6 not included? Were they less unexpected? Were they suspicious of those 8 cases specifically? Or suspicious of LL specifically but she could only be responsible for those 8? Or was 8 out of 14 the most any individual nurse was on shift for and that led them to LL?
- I'd also wonder if any nurses joined or left during this time? Someone could have been around for all the deaths up until Dec 2015 and then changed role - you may be the only person around for multiple incidents because you're one of the few consistent members of staff over the period in question.
Jul 2018 arrest 1 released police bail
Jul 2019 arrest 2 released police bail
Nov 2020 charged and held on remand until present.

From what we heard presented today, and what we know of the timeline and the RCPCH review - it doesn't seem like anyone suspected anything amiss at the time with Children A + B - but much later came to the conclusion that this was an air embolism when looking for possible methods, likely once it was established they were looking for a possible serial killer. And this will be the story with most of the babies until the last few when people were getting concerned and looking harder for causes.

It does seem like she's the only nurse that was on shift for these 7 deaths and 15 other non-fatal collapses and no other nurse comes close - but what about when we consider the other 7 deaths and presumably at least another few non-fatal collapses that must be out there? If we got to LL because she was the only one on shift for these 7 deaths, but we're only considering these 22 charges and ignoring as many others because LL couldn't be responsible - that's circular reasoning.

Other points that have come up:
- Night shifts and days shifts - I don't know of any nurse working exclusively night shifts for a protracted period. Nurses typically work a few days on a few days off with no repeating pattern, they find out their shifts a few weeks in advance, they'll generally work 3 or 4 night shifts in a row and then a few days off and then day shifts, or more night shifts, it varies. So this is a double counting thing, if we're saying she was the only nurse on shift for all 22 incidents, it doesn't add anything to say that the incidents that happened when she was on night shift happened at night and the ones that happened when she was on day shift happened during the day. It is definitely not, they noticed incidents at night and they suspected LL so they moved her to day shifts and the incidents followed her - that's a very different thing.

- Facebook stalking multiple people in succession who are linked by some common theme is not unusual (e.g. I'll sometimes think of someone I used to work with, then look up other past colleagues - so if you say looked up the parents of that poor baby who died last year, is it a stretch to think you immediately look up the parents of the other baby that died and the other one) and not a data protection issue to remember people's names.

- I think it's odd to just happen to have the handover sheet from the day when Child B nearly died 3 years ago - on the other hand I'd imagine the day after Child A died, it would be a pretty overwhelming time for anyone innocent, and that upon realising you still had the handover sheet from the day you saved the other twin, you might not throw it away.

- Select answers from 3 days of interviews about events that happened 2 or 3 years ago may look incriminating but bear in mind the prosecution is only interested in the lines that could look incriminating.

- Likewise, the prosecution will only use the experts who support their case, they may well have obtained opinions from other experts that did not support their case.

- Lots of small details look suspicious now (LL doing blood gases for a baby not under her care) but everything has been put under intense scrutiny by a team of people looking for any evidence of anything incriminating for several years. If you took one of the other nurses there and subjected her work to the same scrutiny, you'd almost certainly be able to turn up any number of things that look suspicious out of context, long after most people remember the context, stuff they usually don't think twice about.

All that said - if I had to put money on whether she did it... I'd rather hold on to my money for the moment and hear at least both openings.

Incredible post, thank you so much

 

[branmuffin]

2:51pm

On a specific shift, a senior nurse would be designated as a shift leader, responsible for assigning specific nurses to specific babies.
They would be responsible for the administration of medicine.
The neonatal unit had four rooms, split into the ICU (intensive care unit), the HDU (high dependency unit) and special care babies rooms.
"With one or two exceptions", the cases in this trial, Mr Johnson explains, were dealt with in the ICU or HDU.

2:55pm

Doctors at the hospital would work different shifts from the nurses, and a shift would cover the children's ward and the neonatal unit.
Paediatric consultants would be on duty from 9am-5pm, while at night there would be a paediatric consultant on call within 10 minutes of the department.
Registrars would provide senior medical cover overnight.

LIVE: Trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

"No plausible alternative to an air injection" Hmmm, I remember quite clearly when Susan Nelles was accused of murdering four children in the neonatal unit of the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto, all the experts stated that the only plausible explanation for the deaths of the children was through injections of digoxin into the blood stream. The experts were wrong, though.

 

[Goldflamingo]

My heart goes out to the family of the babies that died, To be in a position were you are in limbo for nearly 6 or 7 years not knowing if your baby was a victim of murder or negligence or if there was no fault at all must be torture.

Having my early morning cuppa and read the report covering the November 12th court hearing when LL was first charged with eight murders (now seven)

It was explained that one of the murder cases also had an alternative charge of attempted murder due to one of the new-borns dying some time after being taken away from CoCh. I'd imagine this death would not have be recorded on CoCh neonatal mortality figures.

Can't link as article was published before further reporting restrictions were put in place.

 

[branmuffin]

They mention she was doing blood gas on a baby she was not designated to look after but they haven't elaborated why...was the ward short staffed and she was also attending other babies that were not designated to her that night that were unharmed?

Were other staff members also crossing over doing this to help each other out?

Having worked in the NHS myself for over 10 years it's not unusual to end up with paperwork at home by accident or if she was training to be a nurse specialist she may have to do "case studies" for her exams and this paperwork was a reminder of a particular case. It will be interesting to find out if she had paperwork relating to ALL of the babies she's allegedly harmed or tried to harm?

I would also hope they have extensively tested the tubes and equipment for any faults or issues. NHS budget cuts will often result in hospitals trying to procure cheaper equipment and consumables to cut costs.

All MOO.

Judging by this article, I get the impression this hospital has been operating at dangerous levels for a while. Whether it's staffing levels, outdated equipment or staff morale, they score very low with their most recent inspection in June.

Countess of Chester Hospital maternity services unsafe - report

The health watchdog raises serious concerns about care at Countess of Chester Hospital in Cheshire.

www.bbc.com

I don't know if LL is innocent or guilty, but I don't see any evidence presented so far in opening statements other than conjecture and coincidences. If x-ray evidence during autopsy showed air embolisms at the time these children died, why did it take four years and three arrests to identify that? I get the general impression the justice system is scrambling to fit a square peg in a round hole and hope everyone suffers from visual dyslexia.

I still believe in reasonable doubt.

 

[cuecard]

A well-written post Supernovae! I'd like to point out a similar reasoning was followed in the Lucia de Berk's case. Deaths were only considered suspicious if Lucia was on duty, while similar unexplained deaths when she wasn't on duty were not. When asked about why those deaths weren't considered suspicious a doctor or investigator (I have forgotten who it was) outright said "Because Lucia wasn't on duty." Baffling logic really...

On a different note, is anyone else a bit sceptical about the wide variety of murder methods? So far there's injections of air down a tube into their circulation, insulin through a feeding bag, feeding too much milk and pumping air down a tube into their stomachs. Normally a silent killer like this tends to stick to a single method and some of these methods don't strike me as something you can hide easily.

I think on this point about the variety of methods - and I don’t think there’s any nice way of putting this sadly - but the variety could mean there is more chance it looks like a random, tragic death.

If you’re in a ward where babies are passing of the exact same thing then that is going to raise red flags pretty quickly imo. If babies are passing of seemingly different conditions then it gives the image that it is more random albeit no less catastrophic.

 

[HongKongPhooey]

I nowhere said it was. I am just interested to see their angle on it if they present it.

Me too.

 

[JosieJo]

I think it would have looked better for her if she said she had felt sad for the families and took an interest in their well-being after the babies died. Rather than saying she couldn’t remember doing it.

Yes I cant understand why she wouldsay she doesn't remember doing it

 

[JuicyLucy]

Long-time lurker, finally created an account to clarify some things around timeline that I haven't seen anyone mention...

Pre-2013 - ? deaths per year
2013/2014 - 2/3 deaths per year
2015/2016 - 8/6 deaths per year (14 between consecutive Junes but not evenly spaced)

<snipped by me>

Welcome to WS @ConcernedThirdParty

Reading this makes me wonder - is there anything in the various reports about how admission numbers might have changed over that time?

There are various reasons why admission numbers might have increased, e.g (off the top of my head)

• they weren't operating at capacity originally
• changed protocols about which babies spent time in the neonatal unit
• changed local planning about which hospital high risk pregnancies were referred to

(I'm sure there are lots more but I'm posting in haste.)

If patient numbers increased, you would naturally expect patient deaths to increase, not least as pressure on beds might alter thresholds for discharge to the regular ward.

Just a thought.

 

[JosieJo]

Just catching up from overnight and reading comments there is a lot of discussion about LL being the common denominator because she was on duty.
Also that the hospital suspected LL when they reported the matter to the police.

To me what's so much more important is that she carried out direct clinical interventions involving acess lines (infusion in A and blood gases B) just prior to collapse.

Air embolism and insulin overdose will cause a very rapid deterioration especially air embolism.

This is quite damning imo but will be interested to see if this is the case for all babies.

 

[merrypason]

I am not familiar with the processes that the UK incorporates to investigate an increase in neonatal deaths but I would think they saw anomalies that were outside the norm. So it's bit disingenuous to start an independent investigation completely ignoring the issue of malign purpose. They already knew that the deaths in 2015 were outside the norm and the 2016 deaths were an indication that they were increasing.

How can police investigators jump to criminal intent without evidence collected by the hospital? They have no evidence. There were no tests for toxicology, blood sugar and blood electrolytes.

The police didn’t jump to criminal intent either. The recommendation from the RHPC report was for the hospital to further investigate the cases more closely as theirs was a broader review.

The police were then called in who brought in yet another team of independent clinicians to do their own review. These are the doctors who did forensic evidence/interviews and concluded 2 of the deaths certainly were deliberate. Now I’m sure consultants and others raised suspicions about LL and she was on their radar, hence being moved to admin duties. But the reason the police brought in unrelated independent reviewers would be to not jump to conclusions or conduct a witch hunt on the say so of a few professionals. That’s why this has taken 6 years and she wasn’t arrested for all the deaths at the same time and the charges happened over a period of 2 years. 6 years and counting is a long time to invest police resources in a case, they don’t do that lightly. Obviously it wasn’t as cut and dry but there’s 6 months of evidence to be presented on both sides.

Think this is the key difference between this and many other similar cases -(1) 2 sets of independent clinicians reviewed the cases and came to similar conclusions. It wasn’t just hospital and trust staff’s opinion or just the police. It would have to be a conspiracy spanning multiple organisations and doctors if she was scapegoated …(2) she operated on a highly restricted neo natal ward, which is different to other wards. It’s more secluded and access will be for certain personnel only, so saying she was the only one on shift or attending to the babies is relevant. Otherwise it would have to be a ghost. (3) I don’t think with Lucia, there were any charges of multiple attempts on the same patient? It’s a lot harder to plead ignorance or scapegoating if it’s happened to the same child by the same person.

MOO

 

[Marantz4250b]

Yes I cant understand why she wouldsay she doesn't remember doing it

Perhaps it's the truth?