Lucy Letby: ‘Defensive culture’ in NHS meant concerns about killer nurse were not acted upon, says ombudsman
NHS patients’ lives will continue to be “at risk” unless whistleblowing laws are changed in the wake of missed chances to catch killer nurse Lucy Letby, the health service ombudsman has told Sky News.
Executives at the Countess of Chester Hospital, where Letby worked, failed to act on repeated concerns raised about her by doctors who linked the neonatal nurse to a growing number of unexplained deaths.
The government has announced an inquiry into how Letby was able to murder seven babies and attempt to kill six others.
Speaking in the wake of the case, Ombudsman Rob Behrens warned: “We know that routinely 11,000 people die avoidably each year in the NHS.
“We know that the NHS spends millions of pounds in litigation in cases involving perinatal death and other forms of mortality in the NHS.
“And so, it’s going to continue to happen unless everyone gets together under the leadership of ministers to address these issues. And there are no quick fixes.
“There needs to be changes to the law to enable whistleblowers not to be fobbed off and threatened in the way that happened in this case.”
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Letby: Why were the warnings ignored?
Mr Behrens said concerns raised about Letby were not acted on because of a “defensive culture” in the NHS which puts “the reputation of the trust above patient safety”.
He said: “We’ve seen it too many times. In too many places, where clinicians are stigmatised because they want to raise patient safety issues.
“And instead of being listened to time and again, what happens is that they are bullied, threatened, and then ultimately reported to the regulatory body the GMC in a disciplinary way.”
He added: “There is a culture which puts the reputation of trust in the NHS above the issue of patient safety.
“And turning that round is immensely difficult, but it is there and we have to learn from disclosures, by clinicians, by managers, by independent reports, principally by users of the service, by patients.
“And what is of great concern to me, as well as the adversarial culture which exists, is that we know that too many times, families and patients are not listened to. And there’s a lack of empathy and compassion”.
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Did hospital fail Letby victims?
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Mr Behrens has written to the health secretary to add his voice to those, including bereaved families, calling for the inquiry into the Letby case to be a statutory inquiry where witnesses would be compelled to give evidence.
He has yet to receive a reply and is not confident of receiving a response from Steve Barclay.
Mr Behrens is not convinced a report into the failings at the Countess of Chester Hospital will prevent a repeat of yet another maternity scandal in the future, unless swift action is taken to enforce systemic change.
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Letby: Hospital doctor speaks out
Since 2015, three major inquiries have exposed the catastrophic failures that led to babies being harmed or dying at the Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford and East Kent NHS hospital trusts.
A fourth inquiry into the Nottingham hospital trust is now under way.
“I think that just commissioning reports and hoping they will be implemented is not the answer,” he said.
“I think Bill Kirkup has made that clear from his report into East Kent, where he’s basically saying things that happened 15 years ago which he reported on in Morecambe Bay and nothing has changed.
“So this is about the leadership of the NHS, ministers, boards, managers, NHS England, not sufficiently addressing the culture and what is necessary to deal with that transformation.
“I’m not interested in blame. You know, the courts are about blame. They’ve done that in the Letby case.
“What I want to see happen is that there is learning from the fact that here and elsewhere, the board failed to intervene when they had the opportunity to do so, that senior managers had the mindset that the way to deal with this was to say no, this is not an issue.”
A brother and sister have been jailed for the murder of a drug dealer in a “ferocious” knife attack.
Isaiah Marsh, 21, and his 23-year-old sibling Mya Marsh were sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for killing Minister Enfrence, 21, in a row over a £200 cannabis debt.
Bank worker Mya was trying to buy drugs from Mr Enfrence in Kings Norton, Birmingham, when she met him armed with a kitchen knife at about 10am on 5 November, the city’s crown court heard.
Judge Simon Drew KC said that Mya was the aggressor in an initial confrontation with Mr Enfrence over the debt as he sentenced the siblings on Thursday.
Mya called her brother Isaiah to the scene, who “launched a ferocious attack on Minister as he lay defenceless on his back on the floor” and had intended to kill, the judge said.
Mr Enfrence suffered at least 12 stab wounds to his body, arms, hands and head in the “unprovoked” attack.
He did not die instantly and managed to escape before collapsing nearby.
Judge Drew said footage of the attack, which was caught on CCTV, was “truly sickening” to watch as Mr Enfrence died a “traumatic and painful death”.
Minister Enfrence was killed on 5 November. Pic: West Midlands Police
Siblings unanimously convicted of murder
The footage shows Mya passing a knife to her brother during the stabbing.
The judge told them: “This was an attack by two people on one. That attack was unprovoked. Members of the public, including a child in a pushchair, passed very close by while the attack was taking place.”
After the killing, Mya went to work “as if nothing had happened” after taking the morning off work, citing mental health problems, the court was told.
Isaiah later handed himself in to the police.
A jury unanimously convicted the siblings of murder on Monday following a three-week trial.
Both had denied murder and alternative charges of manslaughter.
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Isaiah claimed he acted in self-defence, while Mya claimed she did not believe her brother would use the knife to stab Mr Enfrence.
Rachel Brand KC, representing Mya, said the attack was “utterly out of character” for her client and that Mya had shouted “stop it” and “break it up” during her brother and Mr Enfrence’s struggle.
Isaiah, meanwhile, would find it “almost impossible to reconcile what he saw on the CCTV with who he is”, his barrister Michael Ivers KC told the court.
“He has told everyone who will listen when they have spoken to him that he is full of remorse about what happened,” Mr Ivers said.
Police investigating the torture and killing of a pair of kittens in west London have published CCTV pictures of two teenagers they want to speak to.
Warning: This article contains details some readers may find distressing
The Metropolitan Police were tipped off on 3 May that two teenagers had allegedly dismembered the animals at Ickenham Road, Ruislip.
No arrests have been made.
Officers released footage of a boy and a girl on Thursday and asked people to help identify them.
The boy is described by the Met as 5ft 6in (168cm) tall, with short dark hair. He was wearing a dark jacket with long sleeves, with blue jeans.
Police sergeant Babs Rock said the boy “was also seen carrying a black duffel bag, which sadly is thought to have contained the kittens”.
The two youths. Pic: Metropolitan Police/PA
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Sergeant Rock said the young girl was the same height as the boy, with long red hair.
“She was wearing a white top with black shorts. She was also carrying a purple jumper, which she later puts on to wear,” she said.
“If you know these two individuals then please come forward to us, we would like to speak with them as soon as possible.”
In the video, the pair are seen walking down a street and then later running back the way they came.
Sergeant Rock described it as “an incredibly distressing incident which I know has caused concern in the local community”.
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