Lucy Letby found guilty.

Isn’t that the problem though Whitewave? That these health trusts are independent and operate completely within their own perimeters? If government (of any colour) were more involved maybe they would be forced to operate in a more open manner? Or maybe not. I don’t know, I’m musing and not sure there is a way to bring these organisations into line.

Mollygo

Callistemon21

I would like a health service which is arms length from any government and where day to day and major issues are taken out of governments hands and placed into an independent trust

I think some of us have been thinking the same for a long time.

Our NHS shouldn't be subjected to so many changes for purely political reasons.

Good idea. An independent trust that could more easily be held to account.
And let’s apply that to education too.

But that's what we have. The government has very little say in what the independent trusts do and the system has been set up, so that the DHSC isn't responsible for failures.

PS. That applies to England. I know it's different in the devolved administrations.

I agree with you maddyone.

The NHS seems to have become a far more complex and top-heavy organisation since Trusts came into being, each with their own ideas creating a postcode lottery. There seems to be little or no cohesion. It must be a much more expensive and inefficient way of operating.

The management's concern was the need to preserve the unit's image.

It is very puzzling that a suspicion of murder can bypass the police - this would not happen in any other setting. If I suspected my neighbour of murdering their husband then I would be sanctioned if I did not go immediately to the police. What puts these managers outside of the law? They should be brought to court for aiding and abetting murders, because this is exactly what they have done. A review is insufficient.

If these managers went to jail then it might give other managers pause for thought.

It has just come up on the news that there are 'calls for NHS managers to be regulated.' Horse and stable door come to mind.

If there were to be a judge-led enquiry and these managers from the Countess of Chester Trust were held to be accountable, and punished appropriately by loss of pensions, rather than prating 'lessons will be learnt', I feel there would be a sudden and palpable improvement.

It’s possible that they could lose more than just their fat pensions. Their liberty might be a start.

Kate1949

It has just come up on the news that there are 'calls for NHS managers to be regulated.' Horse and stable door come to mind.

I wonder how they'd be regulated though. What parameters would be set? I agree, but I think it would be a complex operation to set up a system of regulation.

It seems to me that the problem here was that the hospital staff aren't working as a team. The management didn't believe the consultants and thought that they were trying to blame a nurse. Letby tried to blame the condition of the hospital (lack of cleanliness). It was turned back on the consultants, who were threatened with being reported to the GMC.

Alison Kelly was the person (now suspended) was the person who initially rebuffed the consultants. She comes from a nursing background and it seems that she was trying to protect one of her own (Letby) against the consultants.

eazybee

If there were to be a judge-led enquiry and these managers from the Countess of Chester Trust were held to be accountable, and punished appropriately by loss of pensions, rather than prating 'lessons will be learnt', I feel there would be a sudden and palpable improvement.

I can have a guess at what will happen.

Alison Kelly will say that the consultants didn't give her enough detail. At the time, they didn't really know what was going on and I don't suppose that they thought it was murder, but incompetence. They didn't want to accuse anybody without proof, so Kelly interpreted it as malicious gossip.

There should have been a "red flag" in the system, so that a huge increase in deaths was highlighted and investigated immediately. Who was responsible for the lack of a "red flag"? I suspect the blame will just be pushed around. People will be wary about telling the truth because they're all going to be covering their own backs.

I think you’re absolutely correct growstuff and it seems to me that the only way to prevent this happening again, or at least on this scale, is that there should be some serious repercussions for these managers. At the very least, dismissal with loss of pensions, but preferably charges brought against them and prison terms served.
It’s not going to happen. We all know that.

maddyone

Isn’t that the problem though Whitewave? That these health trusts are independent and operate completely within their own perimeters? If government (of any colour) were more involved maybe they would be forced to operate in a more open manner? Or maybe not. I don’t know, I’m musing and not sure there is a way to bring these organisations into line.

Well, I’m not sure as it was a government that forced the present management structure in the NHS.

I think it is worth looking at more successful health services in Europe and wider afield to see if it would benefit the U.K.

Yes, I agree Whitewave.

I said I wasn’t going to come on this thread again, but just to confirm that as you suggested growstuff this accountability issue is for England only.
In Wales there is a clear accountability framework for all managerial posts. Of the two people most closely managerially accountable in the Letby case, if they were here, the Medical Director would be professionally accountable to the GMC, and have managerial accountability jointly to the Chief Executive and the Health Board Medical Director for the relevant aspects of his role. The Nurse Director would be professionally accountable to the NMC, and have managerial responsibility to the Chief Executive and the Chief Nurse for the Health Board. The Chief Executives are jointly accountable to the Chairman of the Board of their Health Board, and to the NHS Wales Chief Executive in Welsh Government. This doesn’t stop there being serious issues, but it means that ultimately the buck stops with Welsh Government, and if people don’t perform it is managed. I believe very similar arrangements apply in Scotland - I can’t speak for England as I don’t know how it works there.

Joyfulnanna

I find it hard to believe other nursing colleagues didn't suspect LL given they must have worked closely as a team. She took pleasure in creating situations to watch the reactions of anxious parents, that's it. Babies were nothing to her, she is an inhuman psychopath with low self esteem, displayed extreme narcissist traits and desires that are well beyond normal. She had a chronically empty internal world, and was not able to feel empathy. She chose her career to satisfy her desire to fill her emptiness by creating situations where she could control the outcome. That's my view.

I think you could well be right.

As an aside, I don’t think that she should be allowed a copy of the family statements, as I am sure they will thrill her and she will read them again and again to satisfied her warped mind.

lemsip

MOnica how very crass to bring up adolf eichman on this thread!

Why?

I also had a similar thought to that of Joyfulnanna.
Did Letby initially train to be a nurse expressly for the power the job would give her?
I find it hard to believe that she started off as a perfectly normal, caring nurse, who then turned into the monster she undoubtedly is.

I read somewhere but I don't know where, that nursing staff working in the unit said if an alarm went off , 'Oh is Lucy working tonight?' But it could be hearsay.
Dr. Stephen Brearey said quite clearly this morning on Today that the evidence he gave in court about the response of the managers was under oath, and that he had notes and written concerns to back up his claims.

Oreo

Joyfulnanna

I find it hard to believe other nursing colleagues didn't suspect LL given they must have worked closely as a team. She took pleasure in creating situations to watch the reactions of anxious parents, that's it. Babies were nothing to her, she is an inhuman psychopath with low self esteem, displayed extreme narcissist traits and desires that are well beyond normal. She had a chronically empty internal world, and was not able to feel empathy. She chose her career to satisfy her desire to fill her emptiness by creating situations where she could control the outcome. That's my view.

I think you could well be right.

I agree. Craving attention and creating drama where she could be seen as some sort of hero combined with a complete lack of empathy for fellow human beings; in short a psychopathic personality.

These are surely not the actions of any sane individual. I'm surprised her defence team didn't plead insanity.

There are Ethics Committees to oversee applications to carry out clinical or medical research. These committees tend to be made up of professionals from within the discipline, as well as past service users, members of the general public and academics.
Could not the same kind of committees be set up for whistle-blower within the NHS?
This would remove any temptation to cover up or to show bias.

Primrose53

It was suggested on TV this morning that if she refuses to leave her cell for sentencing then it should be piped into her cell so that she has to hear everything that is said about her and her crimes. Sounds a reasonable idea to me.

I would still prefer her to be dragged to the dock but I son’t think that’s going to happen.

I didn't hear that, but I was thinking the same. Also wondered what happens if a person on trial resists going into the courtroom during the trial, how is that dealt with

Regardless of the fact that she was suspected to be the cause of the deaths, a sudden unexpected increase in deaths should surely be thoroughly examined to find out what is happening. Is it a problem with machines, the environment, something to do with what happened during the birth that is the same for all the babies. And staff on duty are part of that, but not the only risk factor
Interesting about the doc she seems to have been infatuated with, if she was wanting him to bring the babies round and for them to have a sort of medical mutual admiration society for being the saviours of all those tiny babies. Which would havw been wholly wrong obviously but if so why did she do it when he was not there knowing the effect would be fatal. It wouldn't have advanced the trial at all but it might be interesting to see if there were any times when the doc was working at the same time as her when they managed to perform miracle revivals of suddenly poorly babies
I know that sometimes there is no answer why someone does something so evil but we need to know so if there anything we can learn from the answer that might help in the future. Something that might help people recognize a red flag early

Farzanah

I wonder if these excessive deaths on Chester NICU were reported to the coroner. It seems strange if not, because surely that would have set off alarm bells.

Wasn’t Harold Shipman caught by a doctor referring excessive deaths in Shipman’s practice to coroner?

Not quite. Yes there was suspicion from a doc who was asked to cosign cremation forms for the coroner, but a subsequent police enquiry found nothing. He'd been in trouble for using opiates himself earlier in his career but w