A group of 19 health care professionals has written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to express concern over what they believe is the “unsafe” conviction of nurse Lucy Letby, which they say has left them “terrified” that they could also be convicted of killing patients in the event of a “spike” in deaths.
Former neo-natal nurse Letby, was convicted of seven counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Cheshire. She is serving a whole life term and in May was refused leave to appeal, despite multiple concerns raised by experts about the safety of her convictions.
‘It Could Be Us’
The letter says that the group of professionals are writing to express their “growing concerns” regarding the evidence used to convict Letby, now 34, of killing the premature babies.“Over the past months and weeks our concerns surrounding the trials of Ms Letby have been echoed by medical experts, eminent statisticians, scientists, respected investigative journalists, other health care professionals and the public,” it states.
The group adds that they have all studied the evidence against Letby, “But all of us are worried that this conviction is unsafe and as a result we and many of our colleagues are now terrified to continue working in the NHS as we believe that next time it could be one of us who is blamed for a failing system.”
Their letter echoes concerns raised in a Channel 5 documentary on Letby, in which Dr. Svilena Dimitrova, a consultant neonatologist, said he was aware of nurses resigning from neonatal wards because of the possibility that they could be accused of something similar.
The professionals say that in their opinion, “flawed and unreliable scientific evidence was used to convict Ms Letby, and this is having a huge impact on the nursing profession.”
‘Duty of Candour’
“This fear, as well as the potential for being demonised, trolled and being labelled conspiracy theorists, means that our voices are not being heard,” the letter said, adding that the group takes its “Duty of Candour” to speak out on failings within their profession seriously.The group is asking the government to order either a Royal Commission or an independent and “forensic” review of the medical evidence used to convict Letby.
The professionals are concerned that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Report carried out in 2016 by the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, after the spike in the deaths of the babies, was never explored or shown to the jury, pointing out that it outlined “higher activity with higher risk babies, staffing shortages, insufficient consultant presence and ward rounds, and a reluctance by medical staff to seek senior support.”
The group points to the fact that while Letby was present on the wards when the babies for whose deaths she was convicted died, there were a number of other baby deaths in the same period that occurred when she was not on shift, while she also worked an above average number of shifts.
‘A Very Selective Picture’
The group argues that the staffing chart presented to the jury was “misleading” and offered “a very selective picture of presence on shift for deaths and collapses, with six or more deaths in the indictment period which were left off the chart, and which have been revealed through a Freedom of Information Request.”“During the trial, experts repeatedly misrepresented the health state of the babies, repeatedly describing them as ‘well’ and ‘stable’ when many of them were extremely premature and vulnerable. Most of the babies required respiratory support and ventilation and other medical interventions, some were being treated for infections.
“We request, a scientifically rigorous royal commission/independent review where real experts, such as forensic pathologists, medical specialists, and scientists, can conduct a detailed and meticulous forensic assessment to re-examine the evidence in this troubling case.
‘The Truth is the Truth’
The group argues that protocols over blood testing for insulin were “clearly not followed,” pointing to a lack of forensic evidence for the convictions as well as the fact that the babies who died were not “well,”—as the prosecution argued—but “extremely premature and vulnerable.”The professionals pointed to the fact that judges at the Court of Appeal refused to accept the evidence of eminent neonatologist, Dr. Shoo Lee, who rebutted the idea that air had been injected into the babies who died.
“The truth is the truth and will always remain the truth. What has been heard cannot be unheard. High scientific standards were not met by the prosecution witnesses, and their evidence was not built on credible scientific facts,” the letter argued.
The group believes that expert witnesses, in this case, gave “unscientific testimonies, offering what we know as nurses to be extremely implausible” and questions why other potential causes of the babies’ deaths, such as “substandard care, hygiene issues and natural course of illness” had been ruled out.
Since reporting restrictions have been lifted with Letby’s conviction, multiple media outlets have published detailed articles presenting serious concerns with the reliability of the evidence used to convict her, including a 10,000-word piece in The New Yorker, initially blocked for UK readers.
