UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #6

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Supernovae said:
I would have thought this would also be true of the other nurses who have been named, though.
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Not necessarily. They may have moved elsewhere, given up nursing, aren't involved with other cases or potential cases, etc.

Another reason for the order could be that some of them may have active cases against the hospital at the Employment Tribunal, or grievances which may end up there. These are good reasons as to why they may have orders preventing publication of their names. Protecting the course of justice is the main reason as to why people's identities are barred by order of the court from publication in proceedings.
 
Tortoise said:
Interesting thought Supernovae.

I'm not sure if it's just one unnamed nurse or a few, because I don't think the reporting specifies whether it's the same nurse back to give evidence or a different one. I think there's also a doctor who is unnamed, I'll have to check back.

Same with her texts, sometimes they say she's texting with a colleague who can't be named and I'm not sure if it's always the same one.

I agree it sounds like that's all the defence is left with. They said in opening - "A professor had given "three possible explanations", none of which identified Letby as a culprit."

(The three possibilities are : that the same bag was transferred over the line, that the replacement stock bag was contaminated, or that some part of the 'giving set' was contaminated by insulin fron the first TPN bag which had bound to the plastic, and therefore continued to flow through the hardware even after a non-contaminated bag was attached.)

I'd argue with the professor, :pI think there's a fourth possibility - that the first AND second bags could have been contaminated, unless that's what he means and the word also is missing - ie "stock bag was also contaminated"

BTW how can someone contaminate a bag without the hole being obvious and the bag leaking?
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BTW how can someone contaminate a bag without the hole being obvious and the bag leaking?

Imo The bags have 2 ports at the bottom one where the giving set (the tube to the baby) goes in ..and one that has a small self sealing rubber bung to allow injections into it
 
Eloise said:
I know I would hate to have my identity published internationally just because I happened to be a witness to an alleged crime and had to give evidence in court. It's not like you're doing it by choice. My obligation would be to the court - not to the curious public.
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I agree but you don't get that choice unless there is an overriding reason to do it as justice is supposed to be an open system. There would have to be a human rights issue which overrode the right of the press to publish or a significant risk that the proceedings, or other proceedings, might be prejudiced by the publication of your name.
 
Kemug said:
Yikes, this is all getting too much! And as someone said previously, whatever the verdict, the hospital will come out of this looking bad.
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The hospital already looks like a shower of *****, to be honest, and I'm sure will look even worse after the end of this trial. It's already been accepted that "sub-optimal" care was given in several cases. If it turns out that they actually did transfer a serial killer to a different shift in order to track the pattern of death and destruction they thought she was causing then people may end up in prison!
 
Back to baby E - I noticed in LL's police interview (from prosecution opening statements)-

"She said she and another member of staff had disposed of the aspirate and the advice was to omit the feed."

There's been no other nurse mentioned yet, in room 1, or in LL's nursing notes.
 
Honeybirdette said:
Forgive me if I’m being ignorant but I don’t think it’s as easy nor as simple as just being able to suspend someone because a couple colleagues suspected foul play.

I mean firstly, there was no proof of it. Lucy letby was never caught red handed murdering any of these children. Quite the opposite, her colleagues had nothing but good things to say about her.
Remember at this point the cause of deaths according to the coroner was ‘natural’ albeit sometimes unexplained.
It’s extremely sensitive and you can’t just throw allegations like that about, in any profession to be honest, particularly in this certain scenario.

Secondly, let’s not forget these are the strongest allegations a nurse could be accused of and if they get it wrong LL would take them to the cleaners.

Hindsight is 20:20, obviously the correct thing to do was to suspend her indefinitely from the first moment someone expressed any incling of suspicions about her, but in reality it’s not that easy and there is a lot of red tape that goes on behind the scenes.
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I hear where you're coming from and I think we discussed this previously. I don't think that suspending someone because you thought they were harming patients (intentionally or not) is a big step. There will surely be procedures on this and I'm sure that those procedures will be clear that if you suspect intentional harm then you remove them from the premises.

Harming patients is an exceptionally serious matter, the consequences of which may be death or serious permanent injury. The bar for evidence to suspend someone for investigation of such a suspicion will be low. It would need to be more than just suspicion and rumour but even tenuous evidence is probably acceptable.

You aren't sacking the person, only suspending them and as long as you carry out a expeditious investigation of the matter then I can't really see where the problem is. The potential consequences of not doing so far outweigh the employee's right not to be suspended, IMO.
 
JosieJo said:
BTW how can someone contaminate a bag without the hole being obvious and the bag leaking?

Imo The bags have 2 ports at the bottom one where the giving set (the tube to the baby) goes in ..and one that has a small self sealing rubber bung to allow injections into it
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Charles Cullen put tiny pinpricks in saline bags and injected insulin into them. The nurse who suspected him had to squeeze each bag to find the holes.
 
LadyEdgeworth said:
I would love to hear more about the time spent on admin duty because I agree with you guys it is really bonkers. A band 6 nurse being placed on admin duties for what, two years? Whilst they investigate her potentially being a serial killer? What did she know at this point or what was she even told during this time, the rumour mill at work had to be crazy. I feel like it would have made anybody quit.

Plus as you guys have all said, just swapping her shift pattern or moving her to admin duty still allows her into the hospital to access patients that she was allegedly targeting. The fact the hospital seemed to just run their own experiment by moving her? But I'm no expert on employment law I know it does seem hard to be sacked by the NHS.
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I heard ya and have the same thoughts. But my husband suggested that maybe it was better to keep her there, on the payroll, as opposed to her going to get another job involving babies. Maybe it was a safety net to have her there, and keep their eyes on her?

If the hospital didn't have enough evidence yet to charge her, their hands were pretty much tied. It appears she may have created enough doubt, and kept enough work notes, to keep things confusing for quite awhile. JMO
 
Marantz4250b said:
I hear where you're coming from and I think we discussed this previously. I don't think that suspending someone because you thought they were harming patients (intentionally or not) is a big step. There will surely be procedures on this and I'm sure that those procedures will be clear that if you suspect intentional harm then you remove them from the premises.

Harming patients is an exceptionally serious matter, the consequences of which may be death or serious permanent injury. The bar for evidence to suspend someone for investigation of such a suspicion will be low. It would need to be more than just suspicion and rumour but even tenuous evidence is probably acceptable.

You aren't sacking the person, only suspending them and as long as you carry out a expeditious investigation of the matter then I can't really see where the problem is. The potential consequences of not doing so far outweigh the employee's right not to be suspended, IMO.
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But you’d need evidence to do so, and at that point there was none. She wasn’t caught red handed in the act and the coroner wasn’t ruling any deaths as suspicious. Having a suspicion wouldn’t be enough (and rightly so to be honest because anyone could make an accusation and get someone suspended despite it being completely unfounded!) I believe it was months (even years) after when the police/medical experts were called in and confirmed the deaths could be suspicious.
 
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Marantz4250b said:
I hear where you're coming from and I think we discussed this previously. I don't think that suspending someone because you thought they were harming patients (intentionally or not) is a big step. There will surely be procedures on this and I'm sure that those procedures will be clear that if you suspect intentional harm then you remove them from the premises.

Harming patients is an exceptionally serious matter, the consequences of which may be death or serious permanent injury. The bar for evidence to suspend someone for investigation of such a suspicion will be low. It would need to be more than just suspicion and rumour but even tenuous evidence is probably acceptable.

You aren't sacking the person, only suspending them and as long as you carry out a expeditious investigation of the matter then I can't really see where the problem is. The potential consequences of not doing so far outweigh the employee's right not to be suspended, IMO.
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I don't think that someone can just 'suspect' a nurse is doing harm, and then can 'remove them from the premises.' It is more complicated than one just having suspicions.

Especially when coroners have already indicated there were medical explanations for the deaths.

I think removing them from working with patients and giving them paperwork duties was a good temporary solution. It also prevented them from quitting their job and relocating to another hospital to continue on unnoticed.
 
katydid23 said:
I heard ya and have the same thoughts. But my husband suggested that maybe it was better to keep her there, on the payroll, as opposed to her going to get another job involving babies. Maybe it was a safety net to have her there, and keep their eyes on her?

If the hospital didn't have enough evidence yet to charge her, their hands were pretty much tied. It appears she may have created enough doubt, and kept enough work notes, to keep things confusing for quite awhile. JMO
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That would never happen. If they suspected her of harming patients they should have suspended her (with pay) and investigated. Similarly if they thought she was incompetent they should be addressing that, not just moving her position. Also, remember that this is the NHS so they can't justify taking a highly qualified nurse who'd cost a lot to train and sit her at a desk that someone on half her money should be doing.

I'm not sure how nursing registration works but its a national thing here, not local, so all prospective employers can see it. I'm sure that if she were being moved due to suspicions as to her level of care that there will be procedures to update her nursing record with this information.
 
Honeybirdette said:
But you’d need evidence to do so, and at that point there was none. She wasn’t caught red handed in the act and the coroner wasn’t ruling any deaths as suspicious. Having a suspicion wouldn’t be enough (and rightly so to be honest because anyone could make an accusation and get someone suspended despite it being completely unfounded!) I believe it was months (even years) after when the police/medical experts were called in and confirmed the deaths could be suspicious.
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You do need evidence but, as I say, the level needed to suspend someone who is potentially harming babies will be somewhat low due to the nature of the consequences of not acting, imo.

The fact remains that they allegedly changed her shifts and then moved her to admin because they suspected that she may be harming babies. You cant take someone away from their core job without very good reason so they are in the hole anyway for doing that. If they had enough evidence to do that then they have enough evidence to suspend her and should have suspended her! In fact, it makes their case more secure to do that because if she takes them to an ET for moving her away from front-line nursing she can simply argue that "...if you thought I was harming patients you should have suspended me so that's evidence that you're discriminating against me by putting me on admin duties..".

A simple correlation between her presence and unexplained deaths and collapses would be more than enough to suspend her while you investigate. Indeed, that is essentially the core of the prosecution's case here as they have made no bones about.
 
katydid23 said:
I don't think that someone can just 'suspect' a nurse is doing harm, and then can 'remove them from the premises.' It is more complicated than one just having suspicions.

Especially when coroners have already indicated there were medical explanations for the deaths.

I think removing them from working with patients and giving them paperwork duties was a good temporary solution. It also prevented them from quitting their job and relocating to another hospital to continue on unnoticed.
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"Suspicion" is used in the wider sense here though. If you are arrested, for instance, you are always arrested on "suspicion" of a particular crime, for instance. Suspicion isn't just a bad feeling about someone, it's an opinion based on evidence.
 
Marantz4250b said:
That would never happen. If they suspected her of harming patients they should have suspended her (with pay) and investigated. Similarly if they thought she was incompetent they should be addressing that, not just moving her position. Also, remember that this is the NHS so they can't justify taking a highly qualified nurse who'd cost a lot to train and sit her at a desk that someone on half her money should be doing.

I'm not sure how nursing registration works but its a national thing here, not local, so all prospective employers can see it. I'm sure that if she were being moved due to suspicions as to her level of care that there will be procedures to update her nursing record with this information.
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I think they can justify taking a highly trained nurse off of working with patients if there was an unexplained spike in sudden deaths. That does not mean she was guilty of anything---they needed to investigate. Which they did. Meanwhile she was keeping herself busy doing administrative duties.

They could not 'update' her nursing record with any kind of 'suspicions' without solid evidence or heads would roll.
 
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