British health authorities are “urgently” working on a plan to install 24-hour cameras over newborns’ hospital cots, following a recommendation by a public inquiry into the handling of the Lucy Letby case.
Three dead babies would have survived at the northwest England hospital where Letby worked as a neonatal nurse before her convictions for mass murder if management had acted sooner, the inquiry by British appeal court judge Kathryn Thirlwall found.
Yvette Cooper, Britain’s health secretary, told the House of Commons on Tuesday that she was “profoundly sorry” for the litany of management failures at the Countess of Chester hospital that were identified in the Thirlwall report.
Letby, whose supporters say is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, was convicted in 2024 of seven murders and seven attempted murders on the hospital’s neonatal ward. She is serving 15 whole life terms, after being convicted of attacking one baby twice.
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Thirlwall found that management had failed to act on early suspicions raised by doctors while senior nurses had been “dismissive” of the warnings about Letby.
“On behalf of the Government and the health service, I am profoundly sorry for the failures set out so clearly in this report, for the harm, distress and unthinkable loss for their families, and for the failures to keep their babies safe,” Cooper told MPs. “Our responsibility now is to act.”
She said she had already instructed officials to devise a plan to install cot cams.
Letby joined the hospital in 2012 and was first suspected by doctors of being linked to baby deaths in June 2015. Hospital management were informed of the suspicions in October that year.
Thirlwall found that two babies’ deaths and injuries to five others could have been prevented if Letby had removed from the unit at that point. Letby wasn’t removed from the unit until the following July after the deaths of newborn twin boys.
The inquiry found that another baby died and another two could have avoided injury if doctors had detected an earlier insulin poisoning event – Letby was convicted of attacking several babies using this method.
Thirlwall said the hospital was “dysfunctional” and there was a “complete failure” to protect babies in the neonatal unit. Cooper told MPs she would legislate for a scheme to sack poorly-performing managers in England’s NHS.
The Countess of Chester hospital said “no apology or action can undo what happened” at the facility: “We are a different organisation today with new leadership, stronger governance and safety processes, and a more open culture where speaking up is encouraged and acted upon.”
Separately on Tuesday, it emerged that two scientists had quit a panel of medical experts assembled by her new legal defence team to compile a report that, her lawyers and the panel claimed, showed none of the babies had been attacked.
UK-based chemical engineering expert Helen Shannon and New Zealand bioengineer Geoff Chase said some of the arguments being advanced by Letby’s lawyers were contrary to scientific principles and they could not be associated with them.
They said, however, that they stood over their assertions in a dossier compiled by the expert panel that two babies supposedly poisoned with insulin by Letby had probably not been attacked in this way.
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“The case does not stand or fall on any one expert,” said Mark McDonald, Letby’s lead defence barrister.
The dossier was last year sent to Britain’s criminal cases review commission (CCRC), which examines potential miscarriages of justice. It is currently reviewing the defence report, before deciding whether to refer the case back to the court of appeal.
Letby’s most prominent supporters include Tory MP David Davis, who said her conviction is “clearly” unsafe and that she deserves a new trial.
