A team of former senior managers from the Countess of Chester Hospital have apologised for the delay in contacting police over suspicions surrounding Lucy Letby and a number of baby deaths.
Letby, a 34-year-old former hospital nurse, was sentenced to 15 life terms after being convicted in two trials of the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven others.
The inquiry, led by Lady Justice Thirlwall at Liverpool Town Hall, will examine events on the hospital’s neonatal unit, where Letby was a nurse from 2015 to 2016.
The inquiry heard concerns that it took until May 2017 for senior management to contact Cheshire Police about suspected links between Letby and baby deaths. The former nurse was first arrested in 2018 and sentenced in 2023 and 2024.
Kate Blackwell KC appeared before the inquiry on Friday on behalf of Ian Harvey, former medical director at the Countess of Chester, Alison Kelly, former director of nursing and quality at the hospital, Antony Chambers, former chief executive and Susan Hodkinson, former director of human resources and organisational development.
She said there had been a “significant delay” in contacting police while bosses tried to investigate the matter and that “they sincerely apologise for this”.
“The assessments were conducted in good faith, not to hide the truth but to reveal it,” she said.
Peter Skelton KC, who represents the parents of seven Letby victims, said on Thursday that senior management had left the families “in the dark” about the investigation into their children’s deaths.
Blackwell responded by saying this was “hurt and distressing, and the senior managers deeply regret this”.
“This was not with the intention of deliberately trying to cause distress, nor was it intended as a conspiracy of dishonesty. At the time they thought they were giving the right amount of information, they wanted to make sure that what they were saying was accurate. In hindsight, they could and should have communicated much better than they did,” she said.
Blackwell also told the inquiry that senior managers had been deeply affected by the events at their hospital.
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“While we are in no way suggesting that this is comparable to what the families of those killed and injured by Letby have experienced, it has been the most significant event of our professional lives,” she said. “Not a day goes by that we don’t think about what happened.
“That a nurse could be responsible for these horrific crimes is extremely disturbing.”
Jason Beer KC, appearing for NHS England, apologised “for the mistakes and systemic failures in the way these crimes were investigated” and for a “lack of compassion and candour” and lack of support for the families.
The investigation is ongoing and is expected to take nearly five months. A report is expected to be available by the end of 2025.