A consultant paediatrician who worked with Lucy Letby tells ITV News that his concerns over the nurse were repeatedly ignored by managers at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Doctor Ravi Jayaram says that it is vital managers face more accountability in future and that an investigation into alleged failures is needed to uncover the truth. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 absolutely correct that she's put in prison for life without any chance of release for
00:05 the crimes that she's committed. But it doesn't change the fact that the parents of these
00:11 babies and their families will never get back what's been taken away from them. And it's
00:17 made me angry that she hasn't had the courage to be there to face up to them.
00:21 I think throughout this whole process there have been opportunities for those people who
00:27 are at the top of the Countess of Chester to be able to put their hands up and admit
00:32 that they got it wrong and apologise. They could have done this very early on, the very
00:38 moment that Operation Hummingbird was launched. They could have done this at the point that
00:43 Lucy Letby was first arrested. They could have done this at the point she was first
00:47 charged. They could have done it as the trial progressed and more and more evidence came
00:51 through. They certainly had a massive opportunity to do it on Friday when the verdicts were
00:57 announced. And part of being a professional is being able to admit you got it wrong. It's
01:01 being able to admit and have the balls to actually put your hands up and say we made
01:06 a terrible mistake, we can't undo it but we apologise. But instead, and this is what's
01:12 incensed me more than anything, they are still trying to find reasons why what they did was
01:19 the right thing. You know, for example, one of them said, "Oh well, we weren't loud
01:23 enough in expressing our concerns. How much louder could we be? There have been other
01:27 inquiries into NHS scandals which have been statutory full public inquiries. Why on earth
01:33 would this be announced as a non-statutory inquiry? Is the priority speed? I would much
01:38 rather have an inquiry that asked the right questions and took as much time as it needed
01:44 to get the right answers." I was just doing my job. It's my job to look after babies
01:49 and children and it's my job to do that to the best of my ability, as with all my colleagues.
01:56 If any meaningful change about how the NHS reacts and responds to serious and even relatively
02:07 minor patient safety concerns changes as a consequence of all of this, then I might possibly
02:14 consider that I've done something heroic. Right now, I just think that I've done what
02:23 I should have done.
02:24 [BLANK_AUDIO]