‘A sick joke’: NHS bosses accused of ‘ignoring’ Lucy Letby concerns later handed key whistleblower roles

NHS bosses accused of “ignoring" complaints about serial killer nurse Lucy Letby were the very same people later appointed to investigate whistleblower concerns, The Independent can reveal.

Chief nurse Alison Kelly and medical director Ian Harvey are alleged to have “protected” Letby and failed to listen to complaints from top doctors, allowing her to carry out the murders of seven babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016. Medics said they were forced to apologise to the neonatal nurse, who is Britain’s most prolific child killer, for raising concerns about her conduct after she raised a grievance against them.

Now, The Independent can reveal that the pair, along with the trust’s then-director of HR Sue Hodkinson and legal affairs lead Stephen Cross, were made the NHS trust’s Freedom to Speak Up guardians – roles brought in to strengthen hospitals’ support for whistleblowers – after doctors were allegedly discouraged from going to police about Letby.

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Dr Ravi Jayaram, a consultant paediatrician who claims his concerns about Letby were dismissed by hospital managers, told The Independent: “It seems like some kind of sick joke that those four members of the executive board were appointed as freedom to speak up guardians at exactly the same time that they were doing their best to bully us into silence and bring Letby back to work.

“This reinforces the fact that whistleblowing processes in the NHS are not fit for purpose and need urgent reform also the need for there to be a robust system of regulation for senior NHS managers.”

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As director of HR, Ms Hodkinson was also involved in “overseeing” the trust’s response to complaints about Letby from doctors that resulted in her move from day shifts to night shifts, a senior NHS source told The Independent.

Ms Hodkinson also allegedly advised Ms Kelly on the trust’s response to the grievance raised by Letby after doctors complained about her.

Freedom to Speak Up guardians were introduced in all NHS trusts in 2016 after the Mid Staffordshire Hospital scandal, where up to 1,200 patients died due to poor care after whistleblower complaints were not taken seriously.

The National Guardian’s Office, representing guardians in hospitals nationwide, told The Independent the conflict highlighted in the Letby case reiterated the need for them to be independent.

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It said that, while the scheme was in its infancy when Letby was committing the murders, guidance had been issued to trusts advising them that they should consider any conflict of interest before appointing people to the roles.

“It is not recommended that directors and board executives who may be conflicted be appointed as ... guardians,” it added.

It said it recommended organisations appoint a senior lead and a non-executive director to support the “guardians”.

Andrew Pepper-Parsons, from the charity Protect, which represents NHS whistleblowers, said of the revelations: “It’s pretty damning if these directors are tasked with that role. Presumably, they might have had training as well on how to receive concerns and yet they’re being accused of being of ignoring really serious concerns.”

The Countess of Chester Hospital’s board papers from November 2017 state that all its guardians would carry out their roles alongside existing job commitments because the trust did not have “any dedicated resource” to appoint independent members.

The Countess of Chester NHS Trust told The Independent it had appointed a designated independent guardian in May 2019 but declined to comment further.

Even before concerns were first raised about Letby in 2015, Ms Hodkinson and Ms Kelly led the trust’s “Speak out Safely” function, also intended to support whistleblowers.

In a statement to The Independent, Mr Harvey denied ignoring doctors’ concerns about Letby. He said: “We did not ignore warnings – we ensured that the unit was safe – nor were we reluctant to go to the police; we were prepared to go where the evidence took us.”

Ms Kelly has said she will cooperate with the government’s independent inquiry into the Letby scandal. “We owe it to the babies and their families to learn lessons and I will fully cooperate with the independent inquiry announced,” she said in an earlier statement.

The Independent has attempted to contact Ms Hodkinson and Mr Cross for comment.

Tom Kark KC, who worked on the Mid Staffs inquiry and led a review into NHS managers in 2019, has again called on the government to create a regulatory body that could disbar directors for serious misconduct.

He told The Independent that would “make it harder for incompetent or badly behaved directors to move around the system”.

He said such a council, with the power to ban directors, “could have provided greater public protections and greater reassurance to the public that there was an effective system in place to stop the revolving door”. 

It comes after the government’s Health Ombudsman Rob Behrens wrote to health secretary Steve Barclay warning that the culture of fear around speaking out in NHS trusts is “not isolated” to the Letby scandal.

He said her trial had uncovered a “culture of defensive leadership” that was more concerned about reputation than patient safety” than listening to clinicians’ concerns.

And he warned workers “still pay a heavy price for speaking up and this victimisation discourages others from coming forward”.