Lucy Letby: Doctors resisted nurse's frontline return, trial hears

Doctors had to "resolutely resist" attempts by hospital managers to move nurse Lucy Letby back to frontline duties after she was removed over baby deaths concerns, a trial has heard.

Dr John Gibbs said he and other senior consultants had become "increasingly concerned" about Ms Letby's presence in June 2016 and had demanded her removal.

The nurse is charged with murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others between 2015 and 2016.

The 33-year-old denies all the charges.

Dr Gibbs told Manchester Crown Court that Ms Letby's presence had been noted as a "common factor" in "unusual" baby collapses and deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.

The consultant said the deaths of two boys, who were part of a set of identical triplets, on successive days in late June 2016 became a "tipping point" for his team.

Ms Letby, originally from Hereford, is accused of murdering the first brother, known as Child O, on 23 June and the second, known as Child P, on 24 June by injecting air into their bloodstreams.

Dr Gibbs told the court that when he saw Child O, in the moments before his death, he remembered "feeling uncomfortable and thought 'oh no, not another one'".

As a precaution following Child O's death, Dr Gibbs instructed that Child P, who was at that time a "well baby", should be put on antibiotics and sent for X-rays and blood tests.

The test results were within the normal range and Dr Gibbs said he was therefore "extremely concerned" to learn of Child P's death the following day, saying he "would not have expected that at all".

At this time, Dr Gibbs said he had "become increasingly concerned at the accumulating number of unusual, unexpected and inexplicable collapses that had been happening on the neonatal unit and that Staff Nurse Letby had been involved in all of them".

He told the jury that the deaths of the brothers was a "tipping point for realising something very abnormal and wrong was happening on the neonatal unit".

He added: "This was happening again and again over that year. That cannot just be coincidence or bad luck, there had to be a cause."

The court has previously heard that two other consultants had raised concerns about Ms Letby as early as June 2015 and one had reported concerns directly with an executive manager after the deaths of Child O and P.

Ben Myers KC, defending, put it to Dr Gibbs that if he had sufficient concern, he himself would have raised the issue with management or the police.

Dr Gibbs said, as consultants, they "work together" and he knew a colleague had already reported the matter.

But he went on to say that he and his colleagues did not have "the full picture" and that they knew only that babies had been dying and Ms Letby's presence was a "common factor".

He told the court that if he had witnessed any member of staff "behaving inappropriately or providing improper care" he "would have reported that to the appropriate line manager".

But Dr Gibbs said after the deaths of Child O and P, he and his colleagues requested Ms Letby be removed from the unit.

He told the court that this "wasn't a simple straightforward decision" and there was pushback from managers.

The court has previously heard that Ms Letby was removed from frontline duties and given a clerical role towards the end of June 2016.

Dr Gibbs said he had told hospital managers that Ms Letby could only return if CCTV was installed "in each room on the unit", a move he said was "very unusual" and "unheard of in my experience".

The medic said: "Over the next 11 months we had to resolutely resist attempts by management to have Staff Nurse Letby back on the unit."

The trial continues.

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