NHS bosses in Cheshire and Merseyside will look at whistleblowing concerns during top level talks on what can be learned from the horrific case of baby killer Lucy Letby.

Letby will spend the rest of her life in prison after being convicted by a jury of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six more while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit between 2015 and 2016.

During a debate on the integrated care system at Thursday's meeting of Cheshire East Council's scrutiny committee, Cllr Heather Seddon (Congleton West, Lab) asked about the whistleblowing service in the NHS and how staff who had any concerns could raise them.

Mark Wilkinson, Cheshire East place director at NHS Cheshire & Merseyside, said every hospital and NHS organisation has a nominated person to be a channel if people or whistle blowers have got concerns.

He said frequently NHS organisations also have the non-executive directors who can be approached if staff have concerns.

"So NHS organisations have those arrangements in place," said Mr Wilkinson. "How well they always work, that is a different thing, I think a lot of people would say, and have said on the back of the Lucy Letby conviction – have made comments about how easy it is, culturally, within the NHS to raise those concerns and for those concerns to be listened to and acted upon. I'm sure that's something that will be the subject of the newly announced inquiry into the broader learnings from the Lucy Letby case."

He said the Integrated Care Board, at its next board meeting at the end of this month, would be spending some 'urgent time' looking 'not at the specifics of the Lucy Letby case, but at the broader implications'.

Mr Wilkinson's report to the scrutiny committee said these broader implications would include the role and functioning of local quality committees; examining variation in patient outcomes; the quality of serious incident reporting and investigation and the role of the Care Quality Commission in assuring health service quality.

advertisement