Heart of darkness: Lucy Letby

[Uncle fester]

I'm sure there will be some "would" comments in jest but I've read the detail on her crimes and cannot get my head around what would drive somebody to commit such acts.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... dApp_Other

[Sandstorm]

She’s nuts. Glad she’s going down. Fucking tragedy for the parents.

What annoys me as much is the former Trust Board, who ignored the warnings for 2 years and deflected reports on her repeatedly. Those cnuts should go down too.

[Ymx]

Burning on a stake would be appropriate for this sick bitch.

The nurse had searched online for many parents of the babies she treated, she admitted later. Police found the records of 2,381 Facebook searches on her phone in the year to June 2016 – about 200 a month. Only a minority of these were for the parents of the 17 babies in this trial, but they had a disturbing pattern. Letby often searched for several of her victims’ parents within a matter of minutes, seemingly going one-by-one, hunting for grief. She even searched for them on Christmas Day.

[fishfoodie]

She’s nuts. Glad she’s going down. Fucking tragedy for the parents.

What annoys me as much is the former Trust Board, who ignored the warnings for 2 years and deflected reports on her repeatedly. Those cnuts should go down too.

Shipman got away with orders of magnitude more murders, & again, despite all the warning signs being there for all to see, bupkis response from the responsible authorities !

When someone in the medical profession goes wrong, it's not too difficult for them to hide their murders amongst all the otherwise everyday deaths. If you want a useful case for AI; it should be used to monitor determinant factors in mortality rates, & the deviation between them.

[Simian]

you don't need AI, it's simple number crunching. and concerns were raised.

[Simian]

Burning on a stake would be appropriate for this sick bitch.

The nurse had searched online for many parents of the babies she treated, she admitted later. Police found the records of 2,381 Facebook searches on her phone in the year to June 2016 – about 200 a month. Only a minority of these were for the parents of the 17 babies in this trial, but they had a disturbing pattern. Letby often searched for several of her victims’ parents within a matter of minutes, seemingly going one-by-one, hunting for grief. She even searched for them on Christmas Day.

do you think she wasn't white? that's your mo, right?

not acceptable, be warned.

[Ymx]

What a “clever” way to disrupt the thread all so you can call me a racist.

[PornDog]

Burning on a stake would be appropriate for this sick bitch.

The nurse had searched online for many parents of the babies she treated, she admitted later. Police found the records of 2,381 Facebook searches on her phone in the year to June 2016 – about 200 a month. Only a minority of these were for the parents of the 17 babies in this trial, but they had a disturbing pattern. Letby often searched for several of her victims’ parents within a matter of minutes, seemingly going one-by-one, hunting for grief. She even searched for them on Christmas Day.

The insinuation I'm reading from that is that there are many more suspected victims beyond the 17 that featured in this trial.

[Ymx]

Would they not have reviewed all unexpected infant deaths??

Or just those whose parents came forward demanding investigation.

Although I guess there are possibly large numbers when you look at the prem ward.

It’s so horrendous. I’m sure one of the cases involved her injecting the baby in front of the parent. Imagine the horror and regret of the parent.

[Zapp Bannigan]

Burning on a stake would be appropriate for this sick bitch.

The nurse had searched online for many parents of the babies she treated, she admitted later. Police found the records of 2,381 Facebook searches on her phone in the year to June 2016 – about 200 a month. Only a minority of these were for the parents of the 17 babies in this trial, but they had a disturbing pattern. Letby often searched for several of her victims’ parents within a matter of minutes, seemingly going one-by-one, hunting for grief. She even searched for them on Christmas Day.

do you think she wasn't white? that's your mo, right?

not acceptable, be warned.

Bumping this so you heed the message.

[Dinsdale Piranha]

She’s nuts. Glad she’s going down. Fucking tragedy for the parents.

What annoys me as much is the former Trust Board, who ignored the warnings for 2 years and deflected reports on her repeatedly. Those cnuts should go down too.

I went to a medical comedy revue at the Edinburgh festival many years back - one of the performers was Dr Phil Hammond who has been on TV a fair bit and writes for Private Eye. He made mention of a pediatric heart surgery unit in the West Country that was known as The Killing Fields.

This was referring to the Bristol heart scandal which broke in to the news when an inquiry was launched in 1998. He was talking about it on stage in 1991.

The main point that came out of the inquiry is that there was basically no oversight of the surgeons and nobody was listening to concerns raised by other doctors.

It's REALLY disappointing to see it still happening for the same reasons.

[Jock42]

Would they not have reviewed all unexpected infant deaths??

Or just those whose parents came forward demanding investigation.

Although I guess there are possibly large numbers when you look at the prem ward.

It’s so horrendous. I’m sure one of the cases involved her injecting the baby in front of the parent. Imagine the horror and regret of the parent.

I assume there would be something even if it is minimal. I know where we're concerned, in the Scottish Ambulance Service, any person who dies unexpectedly within 72 hours of having contact with the service has their paperwork reviewed.

[Simian]

She’s nuts. Glad she’s going down. Fucking tragedy for the parents.

What annoys me as much is the former Trust Board, who ignored the warnings for 2 years and deflected reports on her repeatedly. Those cnuts should go down too.

I went to a medical comedy revue at the Edinburgh festival many years back - one of the performers was Dr Phil Hammond who has been on TV a fair bit and writes for Private Eye. He made mention of a pediatric heart surgery unit in the West Country that was known as The Killing Fields.

This was referring to the Bristol heart scandal which broke in to the news when an inquiry was launched in 1998. He was talking about it on stage in 1991.

The main point that came out of the inquiry is that there was basically no oversight of the surgeons and nobody was listening to concerns raised by other doctors.

It's REALLY disappointing to see it still happening for the same reasons.

this is, for me, the key thing

[fishfoodie]

you don't need AI, it's simple number crunching. and concerns were raised.

That's easy to say, because, as you say the statistics are relatively simple, but the number of dimensions are astronomical, & you're always comparing things that aren't exactly alike.

I've done this in highly automated & sophisticated industry, & we still had WTF moments where we discovered that that way one small team was doing preventative maintenance versus their identically trained peers, meant a massive decrease in quality.

To discern that there's a link between who's on shift, when there's a small increase in the mortality rate isn't a trivial exercise.

[Simian]

Burning on a stake would be appropriate for this sick bitch.

do you think she wasn't white? that's your mo, right?

not acceptable, be warned.

Bumping this so you heed the message.

K. Seems weird to let a thread with the title 'dinghy people' slide

but, K...

[Simian]

Just so I am absolutely clear on this

YMX has never ever posted racist / xenophobic stuff and I am super super sorry if my earlier post intimated otherwise.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

hand on then, which one is ymx?

[Paddington Bear]

The story coming out about how this wasn’t investigated by NHS management is exceptionally hard to read.
They made doctors raising (correct) concerns about Letby apologise to her and attend mediation! They could have called in the police so much earlier but decided to cover it up. And those people walk free and will enjoy public sector pensions. But let’s talk about how she wasn’t in the dock for sentencing instead

[dpedin]

This is a disaster on two counts. One a seriously mentally ill nurse, probably suffering from Munchausen by Proxy, was not identified early enough despite all the warning signs and concern by her individual clinical colleagues. The second was the failure, or lack of, a robust clinical audit system in place in the neonatal unit and the senior clinicians who ignored the clear warning signs and failure to take the professionally required remedial actions.

Every neonatal unit should have a clinical audit system in place which would monitor a whole range of clinical outcomes and quality indicators and should flag up any unexpected episodes such as an increase in infections, changes in care provision or indeed a rise in unexplained neonatal deaths. In Scotland most of the neonatal units use a system called Badgernet which is also used widely across the UK. This collects data on every aspect of the clinical care provided in a unit and will produce extensive audit reporting by unit, region, national, etc. Any outliers are easily identified.They should also be part of a wider network of neonatal units who would work collectively to deliver services and to provide a benchmark for similar services. Again in Scotland this is done across units within a region and/or deliver the same level of neonatal care. I cannot believe that given the significant increase in unexplained deaths in the unit over a relatively short period of time that warning signs weren't flagged up by the audit systems and recognised and acted on by senior clinicians and management teams in the regular audit meetings and audit reporting. I would have thought that the senior clinicians ie senior Paediatricians, Clinical Leads/Directors, Chief Neonatal Nurse, etc would have been all over the situation and pressed hard an early clinical explanation for the unexplained deaths.

From what I have read/heard the clinicians on the unit flagged up concerns about the individual nurse early on but were ignored or indeed told to keep quiet. However the failure of the whole clinical audit system, or more likely the failure of senior folk to act on what was being flagged up by clinical audit, is a very very serious issue and a clear professional failure. It may even be criminal failure?

Unfortunately there are always going to be the Shipmans, Allitts, Pattersons or Letbys in the healthcare world but the point of having robust clinical audit/risk/appraisal, etc systems in place is to help identify and deal with them before they do real damage. Unfortunately in this case the system, or more accurately the senior staff running these systems, seem to have failed these poor babies and their parents.

[C69]

I can really not surprised at all about individual failures of management and Nurse managers being utterly moronic.
This sort of poor management is endemic in the NHS.
Quite often local Health Trusts public persona are more important than patients welfare and death.

Could this happen again?
Absolutely yes.

[SaintK]

The story coming out about how this wasn’t investigated by NHS management is exceptionally hard to read.
They made doctors raising (correct) concerns about Letby apologise to her and attend mediation! They could have called in the police so much earlier but decided to cover it up. And those people walk free and will enjoy public sector pensions. But let’s talk about how she wasn’t in the dock for sentencing instead

The two medical directors of the trust at thge time both refused to be interviewed and put out lame apologies yesterday
The sentencing is on Monday, she should be dragged screaming to the dock so that the vistims parents can look her in the eye as she is sent down for the rest of her nastural born life

[Paddington Bear]

The story coming out about how this wasn’t investigated by NHS management is exceptionally hard to read.
They made doctors raising (correct) concerns about Letby apologise to her and attend mediation! They could have called in the police so much earlier but decided to cover it up. And those people walk free and will enjoy public sector pensions. But let’s talk about how she wasn’t in the dock for sentencing instead

The two medical directors of the trust at thge time both refused to be interviewed and put out lame apologies yesterday
The sentencing is on Monday, she should be dragged screaming to the dock so that the vistims parents can look her in the eye as she is sent down for the rest of her nastural born life

The truth seems to be they were happy enough to run the risk of more babies dying so long as it meant their department wasn’t investigated/in the public eye. And their careers roll on.

The dock issue I go back and forward on, and totally get the anguish of the families being denied their moment of justice. I see the law very very differently to people like the Secret Barrister, but I think he has a point about the fact that someone aiming to disrupt a trial will always find a way. She’ll have the rest of her life to think about whether she might have enjoyed one last look at something that isn’t a prison.

[tc27]

I think as DPEDIN said the information is available - it just needs to be analyzed and investigations need to happen sooner. Nursing is already shite job full of legal minefields but when a very obvious statistical outlier like Letbys presence/mortality occurs it should be relatively easy to spot (certainly some of her colleagues had already noticed).

Its sounds like she was some kind of power trip enjoying via proxy the grief and emotion of the parents whose children she murdered.

[Ymx]

Just so I am absolutely clear on this

YMX has never ever posted racist / xenophobic stuff and I am super super sorry if my earlier post intimated otherwise.

You are so so clever, aren’t you.

I didn’t actually report you, it must have been another.

Can you just let it go., stop being a knob, and de-railing this thread.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

The story coming out about how this wasn’t investigated by NHS management is exceptionally hard to read.
They made doctors raising (correct) concerns about Letby apologise to her and attend mediation! They could have called in the police so much earlier but decided to cover it up. And those people walk free and will enjoy public sector pensions. But let’s talk about how she wasn’t in the dock for sentencing instead

You'd also have to wonder what counts as a suspicious/unexpected death when it comes to autopsies, granted the significant lack spend by the government could be an issue, but this would be a big increase in deaths coming out of one unit that seemingly triggered not much of anything as a reaction. And that cannot be what's intended

[Ymx]

The story coming out about how this wasn’t investigated by NHS management is exceptionally hard to read.
They made doctors raising (correct) concerns about Letby apologise to her and attend mediation! They could have called in the police so much earlier but decided to cover it up. And those people walk free and will enjoy public sector pensions. But let’s talk about how she wasn’t in the dock for sentencing instead

This is horrific. The doctors had to apologise to a killer ?!! And then be silenced. It’s so infuriating.

Did the deaths continue after that point?

Where does hospital video surveillance belong with all of this?

[C69]

The story coming out about how this wasn’t investigated by NHS management is exceptionally hard to read.
They made doctors raising (correct) concerns about Letby apologise to her and attend mediation! They could have called in the police so much earlier but decided to cover it up. And those people walk free and will enjoy public sector pensions. But let’s talk about how she wasn’t in the dock for sentencing instead

This is horrific. The doctors had to apologise to a killer ?!! And then be silenced. It’s so infuriating.

Did the deaths continue after that point?

Where does hospital video surveillance belong with all of this?

What do you mean by video surveillance?
There isn't any in clinical areas for obvious reasons

[Lobby]

The story coming out about how this wasn’t investigated by NHS management is exceptionally hard to read.
They made doctors raising (correct) concerns about Letby apologise to her and attend mediation! They could have called in the police so much earlier but decided to cover it up. And those people walk free and will enjoy public sector pensions. But let’s talk about how she wasn’t in the dock for sentencing instead

This is horrific. The doctors had to apologise to a killer ?!! And then be silenced. It’s so infuriating.

Did the deaths continue after that point?

Where does hospital video surveillance belong with all of this?

Right up until the police investigation the Trust treated the doctors as if they were in the wrong, and repeatedly threatened to report them to the GMC for misconduct for raising concerns about Letby.

Even after Letby had been arrested by the police, the Trust's outgoing Medical Director still maintained that it was the consultants who were in the wrong.

"When a new medical director and deputy chief executive, Dr Susan Gilby, began work the month after Letby's arrest, she was shocked at what she found.

She says her predecessor, Mr Harvey, had warned her she would need to pursue action with the General Medical Council, the doctor's regulator, against the neonatal unit's consultants - those who had raised the alarm."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66120934

[C69]

I have no doubt that this could be happening now and will happen again.
I hope heads roll. I can certainly see this sort of cover up happening at my organisation.

[Zapp Bannigan]

Just so I am absolutely clear on this

YMX has never ever posted racist / xenophobic stuff and I am super super sorry if my earlier post intimated otherwise.

You are so so clever, aren’t you.

I didn’t actually report you, it must have been another.

Can you just let it go., stop being a knob, and de-railing this thread.

No-one reported it just to clarify.

[Ymx]

The story coming out about how this wasn’t investigated by NHS management is exceptionally hard to read.
They made doctors raising (correct) concerns about Letby apologise to her and attend mediation! They could have called in the police so much earlier but decided to cover it up. And those people walk free and will enjoy public sector pensions. But let’s talk about how she wasn’t in the dock for sentencing instead

This is horrific. The doctors had to apologise to a killer ?!! And then be silenced. It’s so infuriating.

Did the deaths continue after that point?

Where does hospital video surveillance belong with all of this?

Right up until the police investigation the Trust treated the doctors as if they were in the wrong, and repeatedly threatened to report them to the GMC for misconduct for raising concerns about Letby.

Even after Letby had been arrested by the police, the Trust's outgoing Medical Director still maintained that it was the consultants who were in the wrong.

"When a new medical director and deputy chief executive, Dr Susan Gilby, began work the month after Letby's arrest, she was shocked at what she found.

She says her predecessor, Mr Harvey, had warned her she would need to pursue action with the General Medical Council, the doctor's regulator, against the neonatal unit's consultants - those who had raised the alarm."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66120934

That’s beyond negligent

Saw this bit in the article. Fark me those parents must be furious with Mr Harvey.

No action was taken and she went on to attack five more babies, killing two

And I bet there will be so many more …

[Ymx]

Here’s the table of the linked illnesses and deaths of the babies over time.

[Line6 HXFX]

Can't help thinking..if she was a tory politician or tory economist or chancellor, instead of a nurse..she could have killed 330 thousand people (men, women children) through state murder policies and people wouldn't have battered an eyelid.

[Ymx]

Oh ffs

[Margin__Walker]

No thread is safe

[Blackmac]

I have no doubt that this could be happening now and will happen again.
I hope heads roll. I can certainly see this sort of cover up happening at my organisation.

My wife and a number of her nursing colleagues are currently involved in a complaint against a consultant anaesthetist in their hospital who they have seen being physically abusive to anaesthetised patients and also bullying and abusive to nursing staff. They are up against an absolute brick wall, no one at the hospital is interested and the nursing unions are beyond pathetic.

[petej]

I can really not surprised at all about individual failures of management and Nurse managers being utterly moronic.
This sort of poor management is endemic in the NHS.
Quite often local Health Trusts public persona are more important than patients welfare and death.

Could this happen again?
Absolutely yes.

This is true in most management structures. Frequently, the people promote are those who tell management what they want to hear. Since October I've had a large turd on my plate and the person who dropped it despite accusations of bullying and 2 staff members leaving was promoted and moved sideways. She gave me the heebie jeebies straight out with behaviour towards contractors, staff of lower level and someone you really can't help. Technically fucking clueless but will make a huge issue over a spelling mistake.

[C69]

I can really not surprised at all about individual failures of management and Nurse managers being utterly moronic.
This sort of poor management is endemic in the NHS.
Quite often local Health Trusts public persona are more important than patients welfare and death.

Could this happen again?
Absolutely yes.

This is true in most management structures. Frequently, the people promote are those who tell management what they want to hear. Since October I've had a large turd on my plate and the person who dropped it despite accusations of bullying and 2 staff members leaving was promoted and moved sideways. She gave me the heebie jeebies straight out with behaviour towards contractors, staff of lower level and someone you really can't help. Technically fucking clueless but will make a huge issue over a spelling mistake.

I've seen this sort of shit first hand in the NHS. The Peter principle and sychophancy is endemic.
I am at a stage my career where I have gone from a management role to a senior clinical role and clinical lead.
I really don't give a toss about upsetting management as I now want to move towards retirement.

[dpedin]

I have no doubt that this could be happening now and will happen again.
I hope heads roll. I can certainly see this sort of cover up happening at my organisation.

My wife and a number of her nursing colleagues are currently involved in a complaint against a consultant anaesthetist in their hospital who they have seen being physically abusive to anaesthetised patients and also bullying and abusive to nursing staff. They are up against an absolute brick wall, no one at the hospital is interested and the nursing unions are beyond pathetic.

I think when folk talk about NHS management they forget/don't realise that many are or have been senior clinicians of one sort or another. In the Letby case it looked like the Medical and Nurse Directors were the ones who blocked any action. Any CEO or legal rep worth their salt would look to them to provide expert advice about taking action against a clinician as it is part of their professional responsibilities to provide this advice to managers. I wouldn't think any CEO would ignore the professional advice of their senior Clinical Directors, that would be suicide.

It is often very difficult to get issues raised about doctors, as the profession they close rank and prefer to deal with the individuals themselves through their professional routes. When I had to go in for a knee op my GP, who was a friend, asked me who I wanted to be referred to (in the days when this was an option) I asked does it matter and he raised his eyebrows and told me to ask my doctor mates who they would allow to operate on them. I did and got a list of good guys/bad guys! I know one surgeon who when a trainee would often tell his consultant he would close up after surgery but then often had to redo the surgery to correct their mistakes. Poor surgeons might find they are given simpler case mix on their lists, are given senior trainees to 'assist', are asked to assist other surgeons in surgery rather than operate alone, are asked to do more non-clinical work, etc rather than be confronted with their poor performance. Quite often early retirement is offered rather than being asked to stop clinical work. Whist the vast majority of doctors are hard working and dedicated professionals there are like in every walk of life a few fucked up bastards!

[C69]

I have no doubt that this could be happening now and will happen again.
I hope heads roll. I can certainly see this sort of cover up happening at my organisation.

My wife and a number of her nursing colleagues are currently involved in a complaint against a consultant anaesthetist in their hospital who they have seen being physically abusive to anaesthetised patients and also bullying and abusive to nursing staff. They are up against an absolute brick wall, no one at the hospital is interested and the nursing unions are beyond pathetic.

I think when folk talk about NHS management they forget/don't realise that many are or have been senior clinicians of one sort or another. In the Letby case it looked like the Medical and Nurse Directors were the ones who blocked any action. Any CEO or legal rep worth their salt would look to them to provide expert advice about taking action against a clinician as it is part of their professional responsibilities to provide this advice to managers. I wouldn't think any CEO would ignore the professional advice of their senior Clinical Directors, that would be suicide.

It is often very difficult to get issues raised about doctors, as the profession they close rank and prefer to deal with the individuals themselves through their professional routes. When I had to go in for a knee op my GP, who was a friend, asked me who I wanted to be referred to (in the days when this was an option) I asked does it matter and he raised his eyebrows and told me to ask my doctor mates who they would allow to operate on them. I did and got a list of good guys/bad guys! I know one surgeon who when a trainee would often tell his consultant he would close up after surgery but then often had to redo the surgery to correct their mistakes. Poor surgeons might find they are given simpler case mix on their lists, are given senior trainees to 'assist', are asked to assist other surgeons in surgery rather than operate alone, are asked to do more non-clinical work, etc rather than be confronted with their poor performance. Quite often early retirement is offered rather than being asked to stop clinical work. Whist the vast majority of doctors are hard working and dedicated professionals there are like in every walk of life a few fucked up bastards!

On the whole I agree and know a few Medical Directors who are or have been great Clinicians and have respect from their Peers
This is very different for Nursing staff in Chief Nurse positions.
I know of no Nursing staff in this situation who have any series clinical kudos or reputation.
The Chief Nurse of an organisation usually surrounds themselves with yes men and often the surround themselves with people they have history with and being in their friends and colleagues from previous organisations.
The culture in the NHS is getting no better and I am glad I decided to not go down the Senior Manager route about 10 years ago
The NHS is a behemothan organisation that has been run into the ground systematically and deliberately.
I can't wait to retire, hopefully next year I will start slowly decreasing my hours.