Lucy Letby Press Conference – New Medical Evidence
Thank you to all the press for attending today’s press conference hosted by Sir David Davis MP, which we were proud to organise on behalf of Lucy Letby’s legal team.
As her new barrister Mark McDonald, from Furnival Chambers, commented at the conference today:
“A 35 year-old woman is in prison for the rest of her life for a crime that never happened.”
The panel also included Dr Shoo Lee, an internationally recognised neonatal medical expert. Dr Lee revealed significant new medical evidence, which was the result of independent analysis by 14 of the world’s leading neonatal experts.
Dr Lee commented after the conference:
“If this hospital [the Countess of Chester Hospital] was in Canada, it would be shut down”.
The expert panel concluded the following:
Countess of Chester Findings:
- Medical histories were incomplete
- Failure to consider the obstetric history
- Disregard for surveillance warnings about bacterial colonisation
- Misdiagnosis of diseases
- Caring for patients that were beyond their designated level of care
- Unsafe delays in diagnosis and treatment of acutely ill patients
- Poor skills at resuscitation and intubation
- Poor supervision of junior doctors in procedures like intubation
- Poor skills in basic medical procedures like insertion of chest tubes
- Lack of understanding about respiratory physiology and basics of mechanical ventilation
- Poor management of common neonatal conditions like hypoglycemia
- Lack of knowledge about commonly used equipment in the NICU
- Failure to protect at risk patients e.g. haemophilia, from trauma during intubation
- Lack of teamwork and trust between the health professions
General Findings:
- Inadequate numbers of appropriately trained personnel
- Lack of training for assigned nursing roles
- Inadequate staffing
- Work overload
- Poor plumbing and drainage, resulting in need for intensive cleaning; this was a potential factor in Stenotrophomonas maltophilia colonisation and infection
- Poor environmental temperature control in facility
- Difficulty in finding a doctor when need arose
- Congestion at medication cabinet and preparation trolley
- Lack of appropriate facilities for sterile preparation, e.g. IV drugs prepared in corridor
- Some high risk infants who should have been born and cared for at higher level institutions were born and cared for in Countess of Chester Hospital because of a shortage of beds at higher level facilities where they should have been admitted
- There were delays in transfer of sick infants to higher level facilities when the need arose
Conclusions:
- There was no medical evidence to support malfeasance causing death or injury in any of the 17 cases in the trial
- Death or injury of affected infants were due to natural causes or errors in medical care
- There were problems related to the medical care of patients at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit
- There were problems related to teamwork and inter-disciplinary collaboration at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit
Dr Lee was also joined on the Panel by Neena Modi, Professor of Neonatal Medicine at Imperial College London, who was one of the experts who contributed to the Report.
The press conference was attended by all the major UK media, as well as international news channels.
As well as the press pack in the room, we also live-streamed the conference to other media and interested parties online.
Click here to see the full press conference: