The Trial of Lucy Letby

[Elpenor]

If a crime is suspected to have been committed then you call the police.

Ok; that’s interesting and what I would expect.

I know very little about working in hospitals. I assume that what might begin with asking the question “why do we have so many deaths in this area” can lead to identifying a person of interest, and hence calling in the police (as opposed to say identifying another reason for the deaths eg faulty equipment or work practices).

 

[Red Cat]

Ok; that’s interesting and what I would expect.

I know very little about working in hospitals. I assume that what might begin with asking the question “why do we have so many deaths in this area” can lead to identifying a person of interest, and hence calling in the police (as opposed to say identifying another reason for the deaths eg faulty equipment or work practices).

The consultant (there were 7 consultants IIRC, so not insignificant) agreed with the interviewer that there had been a cover up.

 

[pbsmooth]

Until now I hadn't even thought of what manna from heaven this must be for the conspiraloons

 

[Raheem]

The consultant and his colleagues did suspect that, he was clear, you don't expect that kind of rapid deterioration in prem but well babies.

We may be at cross purposes, but the NHS investigation will not be looking at Letby's actions, but at those of her colleagues and managers. It's unlikely to find any criminal activity.

 

[Red Cat]

We may be at cross purposes, but the NHS investigation will not be looking at Letby's actions, but at those of her colleagues and managers. It's unlikely to find any criminal activity.

We are talking at cross purposes. I was responding to what seemed to be a comment about an investigation that might have but didn't seem to have taken place in the past in response to initial concerns. I'm aware of the remit of any future NHS investigation.

 

[Aladdin]

You can have anyone represent you legally speaking. So in that sense it isn’t odd to elect a parent to do so. But usually you’d want someone who is in the TU machinery. Perhaps she wasn’t a TU member or didn’t trust them. Fuck knows. It isn’t normal though whichever way we look at it.

I knew someone who had her husband with her at a greivance meeting at work
And another colleague had her solicitor boyfriend with her.

 

[comrade spurski]

Genuinely confused about the issue some have with the parents of Letby.

I have no idea how I would react if either of my adult daughters were accused of murdering or deliberately endangering children.
I'm not sure anyone can be certain of what they'd do.

To me it's a bit like when people say they'd have done XY or Z in a difficult situation. You just don't know.

I once saw a young woman get run over in a awful hit and run incident. I was with my then 15 year old. I went into the road, checked her over, told other people to stop cars, call an ambulance etc. I asked a woman to watch me as I took the injured woman's phone and got an emergency number to call her family.
I did everything I have been trained to do in my first aid training. I was calm throughout while others panicked.

If that had happened on another day one of those who struggled to cope could have done everything perfectly and I could have panicked.

We don't actually know what we'd do in awful circumstances so personally the only thing I think about the parents is thank fuck I ain't in that position.


Not having a dig at anyone btw

 

[pbsmooth]

Genuinely confused about the issue some have with the parents of Letby.

I have no idea how I would react if either of my adult daughters were accused of murdering or deliberately endangering children.
I'm not sure anyone can be certain of what they'd do.

I think everyone gets that. doesn't mean we can't think some of their behaviour is weird - a lot of which is behaviour from before it was clear what she'd done.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I watched the BBC Panorama documentary which talks to many key participants incl. the parents. The local newspaper reporter summarises things very well as he must've spent much time on the story. There's a hole in the story though. After the consultants apologised to Letby after the external review what prompted the Trust to finally call the police? From how it was reported the Medical Director, lead nurse and mgt must've concluded that the external review found nothing so it was time to move forward. They must have felt they had followed the correct process so had to draw a line on it. It's not explained how or who changed their mind?

I've just watched it and it's explained that although the consultants were forced to apologise they didn't back down and so the management were forced to bring in the police. Around the 30 minute mark.

 

[Red Cat]

re. the parents, I think there's an attempt to point at something murky in the absence of any explanations for such horrifying acts.

There is something there about parents, what she did was as an attack on parents as well as murder of babies. And includes an attack on her own parents, lying all that time and letting them sit there every day for 10 months listening to the evidence of what she did. Who knows how conscious that hatred is though.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Until now I hadn't even thought of what manna from heaven this must be for the conspiraloons

Yeah except they're not interested when something actually comes out because they don't have the Special Knowledge. It'll all be 'she has been framed' with them.

 

[pbsmooth]

Yeah except they're not interested when something actually comes out because they don't have the Special Knowledge. It'll all be 'she has been framed' with them.

I was thinking more a mistrust of NHS/medical industry.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I was thinking more a mistrust of NHS/medical industry.

I'd kind of see that as a given with them tbh.

And beyond that it's not great for them I think because the usual mixture of ineptitude and institutional arse covering, which everyone else sees where they see conspiracies, is on full display, but ultimately there's no conspiracy. No-one was in league with her to carry out some evil plot.

 

[Wilf]

In my experience at work (including as a union rep), that's just not true. In fact, more often than not it’s actually been more the other way round.

Yep, mine too (as a union rep). Though a depressing feature of equality campaigning is the way it has been co-opted by managerialism, personnel departments and the rest. Statements of practice, codes and pledges are now available for the powerful to use against the powerless. In this case it's not quite a situation of powerful v powerless as the consultants had/have old style professional power. But the long term managerial project to defeat that professional power is at the heart of this and something that ultimately allowed children to die. When the full story of this is told, it wouldn't surprise me if managers did seek to present the situation as doctors v nurses and also male docs v a female nurse. That horrible institutionalisation and blunting of equality campaigning that is ultimately about maintaining inequality.

 

[comrade spurski]

I think everyone gets that. doesn't mean we can't think some of their behaviour is weird - a lot of which is behaviour from before it was clear what she'd done.

That was the point of my post...the behaviour is weird if you are being rational. Maybe they were unable to be rational because of what they heard their daughter was accused of.

 

[pbsmooth]

That was the point of my post...the behaviour is weird if you are being rational. Maybe they were unable to be rational because of what they heard their daughter was accused of.

I guess you just have to draw the line somewhere as to what you dismiss due to being irrational. it's a bit like the 'plea for insanity' - some would say anyone who has committed a heinous crime is 'insane' or they wouldn't have done the crime. at some point you have to decide where you draw the line for people's actions.

 

[kabbes]

I guess you just have to draw the line somewhere as to what you dismiss due to being irrational. it's a bit like the 'plea for insanity' - some would say anyone who has committed a heinous crime is 'insane' or they wouldn't have done the crime. at some point you have to decide where you draw the line for people's actions.

But that’s why we’re quite clear about what counts as “insane” from the point of criminal culpability specifically. It’s got nothing to do with what is “weird”. It only refers to the capability of understanding what is and isn’t allowed.

 

[InArduisFouette]

Seems to be a disturbing number of firefighter arsonists out there

"There's roughly 100 firefighter arsonists convicted every year in North America and all of them are serial arsonists, which means three or more fires," Nordskog said Monday

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fires-set-by-firefighters-a-long-standing-problem-experts-say-1.3563183

The 'access' bar in the US is also very low as lots of volunteer and paid on call FFs in the more rural areas

 

[InArduisFouette]

I guess I was flabbergasted that she was alone at ANY time in the unit / ward.

do you honestly expect all Nurses to be shadowed by another RN at all times ?

 

[InArduisFouette]

I'm concerned that there is an active "end of life" medical conversation that brings patients' lives to an end whether or not they are due to expire immediately or very soon. Are you saying that this "end of life" conversation only happens when their end of life is clinically and indisputably near?

often people confuse discussion aobut DNACPR and the trajectory of care with 'end of life' until they have the actual end of life conversation, although similar topics are part the discussion

 

[InArduisFouette]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that if the doctors who raised concerns were men (the doctors whose names have been reported all were - Breary, Jayaram, McCormack) then it was probably a total breeze for Letby to promote her narrative among staff and managers that she was being bullied and singled out. She will have been believed by default.

the biggrst misgynists in the Health service are cisgender female middle managers and Matrons

 

[Aladdin]

do you honestly expect all Nurses to be shadowed by another RN at all times ?

Did I say that??

It was a premie ward. With sick premature babies.
I would expect 2 nurses to be on at all times.
She took her opportunities when alone...I cannot understand why she was alone.
In the trial it was said that a nurse left to do something / fill in for someone..whatever...and a dr was told. That dr happened to check up on the ward and saw Letby standing over a baby doing nothing as the baby's o2 dropped ...

I think that in any ward where there are very sick patients..especially those who cannot communicate...that should never be one nurse on her own at any time.
That's because these patients are vulnerable.

 

[InArduisFouette]

It’s quite normal for people to ask for a witness/advocate in disciplinary hearings, and if my adult child asked me I’d attend then I would. I’d be quite touched that they asked me because they thought I’d be the best person. I don’t think it’s completely abnormal behaviour for people who are close to their parents.

There’s a question of how they advocated of course.

and more to the point were the trust intimidated by her father ot let him act a Representative \( the way a Union rep does ina discip or a Barrister does in Regualtory or court ) rather than a witness / prompt / McKenzie friend

 

[LDC]

Did I say that??

It was a premie ward. With sick premature babies.
I would expect 2 nurses to be on at all times.
She took her opportunities when alone...I cannot understand why she was alone.
In the trial it was said that a nurse left to do something / fill in for someone..whatever...and a dr was told. That dr happened to check up on the ward and saw Letby standing over a baby doing nothing as the baby's o2 dropped ...

I think that in any ward where there are very sick patients..especially those who cannot communicate...that should never be one nurse on her own at any time.
That's because these patients are vulnerable.

I very much doubt she was the only nurse on duty. Wards and departments aren't always just one room, and people go to the toilet, to get drugs or equipment from somewhere, etc. Loads of people are left with patients alone in pretty much every medical setting. It's unavoidable and not possible or even desirable to try and address.

 

[InArduisFouette]

Did I say that??

It was a premie ward. With sick premature babies.
I would expect 2 nurses to be on at all times.
She took her opportunities when alone...I cannot understand why she was alone.
In the trial it was said that a nurse left to do something / fill in for someone..whatever...and a dr was told. That dr happened to check up on the ward and saw Letby standing over a baby doing nothing as the baby's o2 dropped ...

I think that in any ward where there are very sick patients..especially those who cannot communicate...that should never be one nurse on her own at any time.
That's because these patients are vulnerable.

do you have any operational experience in Healthcare ?

even in ITU settings with a supernumerary NIC and Supernumerary HCAs / Associates ( or Nursery nurses ina NICU / PICU setting) there will be times whenre RNS are alone with patients and no one else in sight even if they are in hearing ( behind a curtin i nthe next bay or just round the corner

 

[Aladdin]

do you have any operational experience in Healthcare ?

even in ITU settings with a supernumerary NIC and Supernumerary HCAs / Associates ( or Nursery nurses ina NICU / PICU setting) there will be times whenre RNS are alone with patients and no one else in sight even if they are in hearing ( behind a curtin i nthe next bay or just round the corner

ICU here has one nurse per 2 patients. That's intensive care.
Coronary care same.
Critical care has one per 3 patients.

No idea what the NHS does.
And yes...I have experience..as a patient and as someone with close contacts working in hospitals.

 

[InArduisFouette]

You can have anyone represent you legally speaking. So in that sense it isn’t odd to elect a parent to do so. But usually you’d want someone who is in the TU machinery. Perhaps she wasn’t a TU member or didn’t trust them. Fuck knows. It isn’t normal though whichever way we look at it.

this is not strictly the case in a workplace discip

generally you cannot have a lawyer in a discip

workplace policies are often phrased to say a colleague or a Union representative ( the latter allowing for reps from other employers or Regional Officers to act as reps - or even to bring an outside friend who is an accredited TU Rep who is acting with the prermission of their Union altohgh without the machinery that repping one of your own ) and to use someone else is likely to cause questions

 

[Aladdin]

I very much doubt she was the only nurse on duty. Wards and departments aren't always just one room, and people go to the toilet, to get drugs or equipment from somewhere, etc. Loads of people are left with patients alone in pretty much every medical setting. It's unavoidable and not possible or even desirable to try and address.

Fair enough but you must agree it's not a good idea to have one nurse on a ward at any time on their own.

 

[InArduisFouette]

ICU here has one nurse per 2 patients. That's intensive care.
Coronary care same.
Critical care has one per 3 patients.

No idea what the NHS does.
And yes...I have experience..as a patient and as someone with close contacts working in hospitals.

Level 3 Beds are supposedly 1:1
Level 2 Beds are supposedly 1:2

have you ever workied ina UK healthcare setting ?

 

[Aladdin]

Level 3 Beds are supposedly 1:1
Level 2 Beds are supposedly 1:2

have you ever workied ina UK healthcare setting ?

Ireland
And no. I dont work in a healthcare setting. Just been on the receiving end.

Eta..intensive care here is 1 to 1 also. My bad.