Hospital Bosses Ignored Months of Doctors' Warnings About Lucy Letby

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Hospital bosses ignored months of doctors' warnings about Lucy Letby---BBC

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The hospital also delayed calling the police despite months of warnings that the nurse may have been killing babies.

The unit's lead consultant Dr Stephen Brearey first raised concerns about Letby in October 2015.

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

Letby has been found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others in a neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, in Cheshire.

The first five murders all happened between June and October 2015 and - despite months of warnings - the final two were in June 2016.

BBC Panorama and BBC News have been investigating how Letby was able to murder and harm so many babies for so long.

Specializes in ER.

Here's a good psychological analysis of this case, and nurse serial killers in general. 

 

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Specializes in Surgical Specialty Clinic - Ambulatory Care.
DavidFR said:

Not the first time this has happened in UK. Beverly Allitt killed several children on a paediatric unit:

https://www.amazon.fr/Murder-Ward-Four-Biggest-Criminal/dp/0701148136

There is a problem where whistleblowers are sometimes ignored and seen as trouble makers, until it's all too late. I'm not sure this is a specifically British problem. We had a case in France of a nurse finishing people off in old people's homes.

We are in a great position of trust and it's extremely hard to know how to strike that balance of policing professionals' behaviour while having confidence in their professional autonomy. Hopefully lessons will be learned. 

The book about Allitt is a striking example of how NOT to do things. Allitt was a newly qualified SEN (equivalent LVN/LPN) in her very first post often left in a position where you would have expected to find a qualified registered nurse with the specialist paediatric qualification. I am not undermining the capabilities of second level nurses such as SENs or LPNs, but such an inexperienced new nurse in a specialist area should have been working under greater supervision than she was. Though at the end of the day, her qualifications and experience have little bearing on the fact  that she was a psychopath. 

With a world wide shortage of nurses, lack of improvements in pay and work conditions, ignoring whistleblowers is not isolated to one country. I often joke that a nurse could show up drunk with her left tit hanging out and they'd still let her work....it isn't far from truth. 

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Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
hppygr8ful said:

I'd say sociopath is at least 1.

 

Also Borderline personality DO

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Specializes in Oncology, ID, Hepatology, Occy Health.

Letby has been sentenced to life life and will theoretically never be released from prison:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/21/lucy-letby-sentence-whole-life-jail-term-for-murdering-seven-babies

Interestingly Bevery Allitt (case quoted above) who killed children on a paediatric unit in the 90s is serving out her time in a high security psychiatric unit. She started out in prison but refused to eat and drink and was transferred to Rampton high security mental hospital, where she has been for 30 years on the grounds of being diagnosed with "Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy." Officially she is eligible to be considered for parole but I can't see that happening given the outrage her case caused in the UK.

https://www.fresherslive.com/latest/articles/what-happened-to-beverley-allitt-where-beverley-allitt-is-now-1555168041

Will be interesting to see how Letby's detention pans out. 

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

"We often create arenas in order to work out unresolved issues."

This quote came to mind as I watched the Dr. Raj video, which goes along with his "God Complex" and "Code Blue Junkie" theories. In essence, we all create arenas in order to work through them and raise our own self-esteem.

Richard Bach wrote something which basically says, "We create problems because we need the gift of a solution".

In attempting to understand the appalling behavior of this nurse, if we adhere to these basic truisms, we can more understand the motives behind these atrocious crimes.

Yes, the acts committed by Lucy Letby are horrible and she needs to suffer the ramifications of her actions; actions which are off the chart for caregivers, or anyone's, behavior. However, we all pay homage to, and would like to be seen as, heroes- those who redeem society.

If we create an arena which profoundly negatively affects others as a result of our actions in order to elevate our own self-esteem, that creation is unjust. But the basic motive behind the actions remains the same.

Davey Do said:

Edgar Cayce said something along the lines of, "That which drives the greatest good can also result in the worst evil".

 

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Emergent said:

I don't think this was attention seeking behavior. Lucy was very secretive in her morbid hobby.

Someone who goes and shoots up a school is definitely engaging in a bizarre form of negative attention seeking.

Actually, have you seen her text messages to colleagues about the deaths? Seems like pretty classic attention-seeking. This article shows some of the text messages: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66104004

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Specializes in Oncology, ID, Hepatology, Occy Health.

Going back to the original title of this thread regarding hospital managers, the discussion in the British media is interesting. They are saying that while nurses and doctors are registered and can be struck off for clinical misdemeanors, managers are often tapped on the knuckles and go on to other jobs with no loss of right to practise even for the most severe oversights. Hence a register of hospital managers is being proposed, so that a hospital manager, as a registered professional, can be sanctioned and struck off the register in the same way a nurse or doctor loses their license to practise.  Interesting thought.

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Specializes in Telemetry, DD, Ortho, CCU, BHU.

I agree that this person has some sort of mental disturbance, but isn't every death fully investigated? If so, might this have stopped with death one? Per the original write in, The unit's lead consultant first raised concerns about this nurse in October 2015 , the nurse continued to attack 5 more babies and killed 2 .  Why didn't the hospital call when the first suspicion was brought to their attention?  The nurse should have been immediately suspended until she could be cleared or not.  This should have been investigated by the  police.  She should have been arrested and had her nurse's license revoked.  One wonders why a hospital would not take heed to what their own lead consultant said?  They owed it to their patients to have this checked out for their well being and safety.  And let's not forget the Nurses.  I have a strong feeling that some of them felt uncomfortable about something, but may not have known quite what it was at the time, but knew something was off about this nurse.  To Everyone if it doesn't seem right say something  or intervene  ( if you can) and then report the incident.  I'd rather lose my job, than live with the thought that I could have stopped something like this.  Overall , I would blame any hospital for not taking the reasonable and expected actions required after being made aware of this by a person suspicious of the nurse's behavior.

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Rather than speculate about why she did it, our concern should be, her MO and how was she able to carry it out. A bigger concern would be how did she fall through the cracks? How did the system fail the babies? Who ignored complaints by 'doctors' of all the people, and why?

Just an afterthought, why is this case being discussed today, and have the concerns been already addressed, considering the last murder took place in 2016.

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Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.

I think its easier to write this behaviour off as a mental illness rather than consider someone is a depraved lunatic who likes hurting small humans. 

Re the whistle blowers, its sad that someone thought "we will push this all under the carpet because we don't want to have a scandal" while completely ignoring the fact that the carpet can only cope with so much crap being pushed under it before it all comes about and we have a much worse scandal. 

 

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Specializes in Telemetry, DD, Ortho, CCU, BHU.

I hope her MO was total insanity because even that is not good enough. I really don't care what her MO was.  No matter what it was , it was wrong.  I don't think she fell through the cracks, I think it was allowed to fall through the cracks.  Many inappropriate acts could happen when a nurse is doing their job.  That is why nurse's are held to such a high degree of professionalism and trusted with so much medical and technical work.  Why this is being brought up now? I don't know.  I do think it is good for nurses to know that things of this nature can happen in this profession.  If something does not look right, chances are it isn't.  Report it.  

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Specializes in NICU.
DavidFR said:

I'm not sure this is a specifically British problem. We had a case in France of a nurse finishing people off in old people's homes.

Had case of LPN killer,Richard Angelo at Good Samaritan hospital,USA,

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