Thoughts On The Lucy Letby Case
I was 76 last week and I can recall few cases as horrific as the Lucy Letby case.
In East Kent Maternity Deaths: Babies Might Have Survived With Better Care, I put forward my views about how we can identify systematic problems in healthcare, whether it is down to serious malpractice or just incompetence.
The Anonymous Widower 
You say the reason, there is no serious analysis, is that there is a belief in the NHS, that no-one ever makes mistakes or is evil.
I’d go even further, any society that continually and uncritically trots out the line that we are “world leading” in this or that or a government that is wed to naming organisations and initiatives Great British Railways, the Great British Insulation Scheme etc is a society that is bound to fail.
Comment by fammorris | August 21, 2023 |
Spot on
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | August 21, 2023 |
The NHS was considered one of the best health services in the world but it can only prosper with the support of a committed government, and since 2010 we have had a government which is anti-state health provision and whose aim is to completely privatise the NHS. It is only that the NHS still retains support from a majority of the voters that has stopped them from doing so so far.
Comment by JohnC | August 21, 2023 |
I think the NHS is patchy, I am a patient at a hospital that is literally world leading, my consultant is also a research professor in the condition I have, and very down to earth with patients. But, hospital most local to me, and where an ambulance would usually take me is definitely not world leading. In a recent bout of ill health, I was able to go to another local hospital who were amazing, and did all the tests etc, and sent them all to my consultant at above world leading hospital so we could discuss them at my appointment there.
However, I developed a little lump under the skin on the palm of my hand, showed it to GP was referred for a scan. To a strange private place which the NHS pay to provide scans for them. It was awful – the radiographer objected to me being in a mobility scooter, was curt to the point of being rude, and her final comment was – oh that looks like a cyst. And I know that when the NHS talk about privatisation this is the thing they are thinking of. I have been to another place – nearly 2 hours drive away, for a hand scan in an extremity MRI scanner – I put my hand in compact machine, and a nice polite gentleman padding my hand so that it couldn’t move, and the scan took about 30 minutes, my husband was with me and we were both offered tea and biscuits. Yes, private, but also provide to NHS – and the local health authority has a contract for certain scans to be done by them.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | August 22, 2023
Your comments about the patchiness of the NHS are I think an underlying failing on the system. Yes we have a “National Health” service but as we’ve seen all too often while one Trust is exemplary another is appalling. Even at an individual Trust level the variations within that one Trust can be astounding.
Researching recommendations for treatments I find that while one Trust may have published clear guidelines locally this information is not necessarily disseminated under the general guise of the NHS information.
Comment by fammorris | August 22, 2023
To my observation and i dont have the real detail of how it works in this sector but oversight, scrutiny and regulation is a common across our society today where those paid vast sums to deliver for citizens fail in their duties and those who should act as a backstop fail as well. The answer is always a public enquiry which cost millions and provide a nice income for legal profession take at least half a decade to come up with a glossy report with good recommendations This will be waved around by whatever minister is passing through the department for the photo opp then stuck on the top shelf. Then a decade later something similar will happen and we will all ask why did this happen again.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | August 21, 2023 |
A democracy is meant to be a society in which the citizens are sovereign and control the government.
Do the citizens of the UK, and come to that many other Western democracies really have a voice in stopping what you have described.
Comment by fammorris | August 21, 2023 |
The Lucy Letby case is appalling – I gather that it was realised comparatively early on that deaths usually happened when Lucy was on shift – it was doctors who noted this. But at first nothing was actually done about it. I have at various times worked within NHS – in non-medical roles. And I am aware that when things go wrong, there is a tendency to sweep it under the carpet – I am NOT talking about patient care here, I am talking about other things – staff taking days off without leave, staff using hospital equipment for private use etc. But when reported that was just ignored. And when they are ignored, there is a tendency to ignore other things – and come out with comments such as “these happen, we have periods when nothing happens and then a periods when it happens frequently for a few weeks” Because the underlying thought is that “all the staff are so lovely and so caring, aren’t they wonderful”.
Harold Shipman – I gather he somewhere along the line had talked about preventing suffering. Using that as defence I think. Lucy Letby worked with seriously ill babies – I wonder if she was thinking the same thing – that the poorly babies would have difficult lives if they lived. It is still murder even if that was what she was thinking. I know of families with a child who has really massive issues but they are happy and much loved members of their family.
There needs to be a system in place for these events, as James says. I am not a computer buff, but surely even just recording which staff were on duty when one of the death’s occurred would be a positive start.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | August 21, 2023 |
I have been involved in two medical cases, which I know put great strain on the staff.
My wife’s cardiologist was in despair at the hopelessness of my wife’s cancer.
I met a nurse, who had looked after my granddaughter, when she was born with severe problems, twenty years afterwards. When we parted, she was streaming tears of joy, when I said my granddaughter was living a normal life and would be going to University next year.
Liz! Do you think staff at the stressful end of healthcare get enough psychological support?
Comment by AnonW | August 21, 2023 |
No, I think staff often don’t get ANY psychological support. It is comparatively recently that patients got support, aside from the chaplains – and of course the chaplains would support staff if asked by the person. But there was an unspoken assumption that staff could cope with things, and if they couldn’t they had families who could support them.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | August 22, 2023
It is an appalling case and the manages of the Hospital have a lot to answer for (which of course they will not) for ignoring doctor’s fears.
What I haven’t found out is just how she killed the babies.
Comment by MauriceGReed | August 21, 2023 |
“The 33-year-old was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six other infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Letby deliberately injected babies with air, force fed others milk and poisoned two of the infants with insulin.”
I don’t give her much of a chance once she reaches the prison. Boiling water and hot fat thrown over her will soon happen. It’s also very easy to fall face first down stairs! Many of her fellow prisoners will be mothers and will want revenge.
Comment by MauriceGReed | August 21, 2023 |
They may decide to keep her isolated for her own safety, which will upset the families of the babies involved, because their babies weren’t kept safe. A lot of other people would be angry about that for similar reasons. My thought is that unless she thinks she has any chance of winning on appeal, she may make the choice to make her imprisonment period very short.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | August 22, 2023