Inquiry finds dad and mom had been stored at midnight as hospital hid Lucy Letby suspicions throughout secret evaluations.
Revealed On 15 Sep 2026
A statutory public inquiry has blamed an English hospital for a “full failure in any respect ranges” to guard newborns, after former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering seven infants underneath its care.
The Countess of Chester Hospital might have prevented the deaths of a number of infants, in addition to the tried murders of six others, between June 2015 and June 2016, Woman Justice Kathryn Thirlwall mentioned on Tuesday.
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“Errors had been made by nurses, medical doctors and managers,” Thirlwall mentioned. “There was additionally full failure in any respect ranges to invoke safeguarding procedures at any level.”
Thirlwall set out 17 suggestions in her findings, urging neonatal wards to equip each incubator with webcams or video displays so households can watch their infants remotely.
The decide additionally pushed for round the clock CCTV over all hospital fridges containing insulin till services introduce tighter, keycard-restricted entry to the drug, which Letby utilized in her crimes.
Hospital executives stored dad and mom utterly at midnight concerning mounting suspicions round Letby whereas conducting quiet inside evaluations, leaving households unaware till police arrested her in July 2018.
Administration additionally handed over the infants’ confidential medical recordsdata to exterior consultants with out parental information or consent, a systemic disregard for households that Thirlwall branded “reprehensible”.
Letby, 36, was handed 15 life sentences for the murders and tried murders. Since her arrest, she continues to face by her innocence and has been denied permission to appeal twice.
Rising scrutiny from a global panel of medical consultants and statisticians has challenged the forensic proof used to convict Letby, prompting her authorized staff to submit an utility to the Prison Circumstances Evaluation Fee.
Thirlwall clarified that re-evaluating the trial’s proof or the security of the prison verdicts fell exterior the authorized remit of her inquiry, which centered strictly on institutional failures and hospital administration.
