Lucy Letby was ‘not first child killer’ under hospital bosses’ watch, inquiry told | UK | News


The chairman of Countess of Chester Hospital (CoC), where Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering babies, was involved in distributing the findings of an inquiry into convicted killer nurse Beverley Allitt more than two decades earlier, the public inquiry heard on Tuesday.

Sir Duncan Nichol was the CEO of the NHS Management Executive when Beverley Allitt killed four children and tried to murder another nine others while working at Grantham hospital in Lincolnshire in 1991. She was jailed for life with a minimum term of 30 years two years later.

Sir Duncan spent his career in the civil service, joining the health service in 1968, before eventually running it. He then became chairman of CoC in 2012, a position he held for eight years before retiring.

Following Allitt’s conviction, an inquiry led by Sir Clive Clothier into her attacks was held in 1994, with Sir Duncan responsible for distributing the findings to the country’s health trusts.

Speaking on the second day of the Thirlwall probe into Letby’s case, counsel to the inquiry Nicholas de la Poer, KC said Sir Duncan would be giving evidence.

“Sir Duncan’s time as NHS Chief Executive coincided with the murders and attacks committed by Beverley Allitt at Grantham Hospital,” he said.

“Following the Clothier Inquiry into Allitt’s attacks, Sir Duncan was responsible for the distribution of the Clothier report across the NHS, writing to all health authorities and trusts to draw it to their attention.

“The Inquiry is interested to hear from Sir Duncan about the lessons he and the wider NHS learnt from the Allitt case and why the parallel between Letby and Allitt was not drawn earlier at the hospital,” he added.

Today the inquiry also heard that concerns about a spike in baby deaths were not discussed at hospital board level until after the year-long attack spree of “elephant in the room” Lucy Letby had ended, PA reports.

Letby was removed from non-clinical duties following the deaths of two triplet boys and the suspected collapse of another boy at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit on three successive days in June 2016.

Consultant paediatricians had urged executives to move the nurse, 34, out of the unit on the grounds of “patient safety” after a number of them had previously raised concerns about her, the news agency reported.

A meeting of the board of directors was held less than a fortnight later in which chief executive Tony Chambers told them there had been an unexplained rise in neonatal mortality at the hospital trust.

The official minutes recorded Dr Ravi Jayaram, the clinical lead for paediatric services, asking for a matter not to be minuted.

The consultant set out Letby’s association with neonatal deaths in a set of handwritten notes, and referred to her as “the elephant in (the) room”, the inquiry heard.

The Thirlwall Inquiry, which was set up to examine events at the Countess of Chester Hospital and their implications following the Letby’s trial, heard that various board committees failed to escalate concerns about neonatal mortality or Letby.

The inquiry also heard that an “urgent care risk register” in July 2016 referred to “potential damage to reputation of the neonatal service and wider trust due to apparent increased mortality within the neonatal unit”, the inquiry heard.

Counsel to the inquiry Nicholas de la Poer KC said: “The risk was characterised in terms of reputational harm, rather than in terms of a risk to the safety of babies.”

Mr de la Poer said it was “noteworthy” that the entry came after a thematic review in February 2016 had “clearly identified” a higher-than-expected mortality rate on the neonatal unit in 2015.

There was no record of the consultants’ concerns of deliberate harm to babies in the urgent risk register or in the corporate directors’ group meeting minutes, he said.

Mr de la Poer said the inquiry “will be seeking to understand why this is, and also why it appears that it took until July 2016, one year and one month after the first indictment baby death, and five months after the thematic review, for the concerns to be formally recorded in these forums”.

He went on: “The inquiry will be seeking to understand why the concerns which were being expressed at the neonatal unit level were not escalated more quickly and clearly through the designated channels, and if they had been what should have happened.

“Why did it take until July 2016 for the increase in neonatal mortality to be discussed at a board meeting.”

Letby was convicted across two trials of killing seven babies and trying to kill seven others between June 2015 and June 2016, and has been sentenced to 15 whole life terms.

The first week of the public inquiry will hear opening statements from the counsel to the inquiry, along with legal representatives from core participants including the families of Letby’s victims.

The hearings in Liverpool will finish in early 2025, said Lady Justice Thirlwall who expects her findings to be published by late autumn of that year.

A court order prevents the reporting of the identities of the surviving and dead children involved in the case.

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