The nurse, Lucy Letby, was convicted guilty of killing seven newborns and making attempts to kill another six. As a result, the government has requested an independent investigation into the matter.
In order to ensure that “vital lessons are learned,” the government stated that it would look into the circumstances behind the crimes.
Additionally, it will examine how hospital workers raised concerns and what steps regulators and the larger healthcare system took to address them.
Steve Barclay, the health secretary, expressed his sincere condolences to all the parents and relatives affected by this horrific event.
“This inquiry will seek to ensure the parents and families impacted get the answers they need. I am determined their voices are heard, and they are involved in shaping the scope of the inquiry should they wish to do so.
“Following on from the work already underway by NHS England, it will help us identify where and how patient safety standards failed to be met and ensure mothers and their partners rightly have faith in our healthcare system.”
In due order, a chairman of the inquiry will be chosen.
Samantha Dixon, a City of Chester MP, demanded a “full, independent, and public inquiry” of the incident.
Her statement said: “The families that have endured this unimaginable suffering deserve to know exactly what happened, and those who use our NHS services need the reassurance that it can never happen again.
“Too many people now live with the consequences of the catastrophic harm caused by Letby.”
The parents of two of Letby’s victims echoed Ms. Dixon’s appeal.
The pair expressed their “very, very let down” by Countess of Chester Hospital administrators.
In April 2016, Letby attacked the couple’s newborn twin sons, injecting Child M with air and poisoning Child L with insulin.
The boys’ father said: “There’s no way she should have been able to get away with it for so long.”
After receiving six doses of adrenaline over 30 minutes with no spontaneous response, child M made an abrupt “miracle” recovery, the trial heard. His twin was also alive.
The hospital staff did not advise the parents that Child L had gotten insulin that was not prescribed, thus they were unaware of this.
When the verdict was announced at Manchester Crown Court on Friday, Letby, 33, was not present in the dock.
When she was employed at the hospital’s newborn unit between June 2015 and June 2016, she was charged with the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of a further ten. She refuted every accusation.
Six counts of attempted murder were not ruled on by the jury.
Rob Behrens, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, demanded “significant improvements to culture and leadership” in the wake of the guilty conviction.
He asserts that when medical professionals voiced concerns about problems in the hospital’s neonatal unit, “nobody listened, and nothing happened.”
The trial revealed that hospital executives had instructed consultants who had expressed concerns about Letby to formally apologise to her in writing.
The trial heard that the nurse filed a grievance against her employer in September 2016.
After two triplet boys died while in her care and another baby boy fainted on three consecutive days three months earlier, she had been transferred from the hospital’s neonatal ward and placed on secretarial tasks.
Letby’s grievance was successfully addressed, and she was scheduled to rejoin the unit in March 2017. Before that could occur, the hospital called the police.
The court was informed that Dr. Stephen Brearey initially voiced concerns about Letby’s connection to an upsurge in infant collapses in June 2015.
Dr. Ravi Jayaram, a consultant paediatrician at the Countess of Chester Hospital, said in court that he had “significant concerns from the autumn of 2015” as a result of a baby girl’s death.
He added: “As clinicians, we put our faith in the system, in senior management to escalate concerns and investigate them. The initial response was ‘it’s unlikely that anything is going on. We’ll see what happens’.”
A “tipping point” was reached in June 2016 with the deaths of two triplet boys, Child O and P, on consecutive days, according to fellow consultant Dr. John Gibbs, who testified in court.
When he first entered the unit and saw (Child O), he recalled feeling uneasy and thinking, “Oh no, not another one.”
Dr. Gibbs testified in court that up until May 2017, when police began their investigation, consultants had to “resolutely resist” attempts by management to bring Letby back to the facility.
He claimed that if she was allowed to resume nursing, the doctors insisted that CCTV be installed in each room of the unit, but hospital administrators were “extremely reluctant” to call the police.
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