A neonatal ward manager at Lucy Letby’s hospital outlined 15 reasons why the nurse could not be to blame for the deaths and collapse of babies, it has emerged.
Documents released for the Thirlwall Inquiry, which is examining how incidents at the Countess of Chester could have been prevented, show that Eirian Powell, Letby’s boss, was unconvinced by allegations against the nurse.
She distributed a document entitled Neonatal Unit review 2015-2016, in May 2016, which gave 15 reasons why it was unlikely there was a baby killer on the ward.
“There is no evidence whatsoever against LL (Lucy Letby) other than coincidence,” she wrote.
“LL works full time and has the qualification in speciality (QIS). She is therefore more likely to be looking after the sickest infant on the unit, LL is also available herself to work overtime when the acuity of the unit is over capacity.”
The neonatal ward manager went on to point out that the spike in deaths could be accounted for by failings on the unit and elsewhere as well as health problems with the babies.
Ms Powell argued that two of the babies were diagnosed with
congenital pneumonia, two had necrotising enterocolitis – a dangerous complication for preterm infants – one mother had a maternal syndrome and one baby had overwhelming sepsis.
“Some of the issues were related to midwifery problems,” she added. “The Cheshire and Mersey transport service have been involved in a few of these mortalities and they may have survived if the service was running adequately.”
She concluded: “Of all the post results there was no evidence of foul play.”
Ms Powell also pointed out that two doctors, Dr John Gibbs and Dr Dave Harkness, had been present at several of the incidents.