A hospital manager today denied telling police she thought it ‘unjust’ that Lucy Letby was being investigated for murdering babies.
Ruth Millward, the former head of risk and patient safety at the Countess of Chester Hospital, told the public inquiry she couldn’t remember making the comment and it was ‘not words I would use.’
She admitted thinking the neo-natal unit was badly run but denied claims she was overheard saying Letby was a scapegoat for poor care.
The killer nurse was transferred to Ms Millward’s department in July 2016 after doctors demanded she be removed from looking after patients following the deaths of two triplet brothers on consecutive shifts. The children, known as Baby O and Baby P, were both murdered with an injection of air, while their brother survived after being moved to another hospital.
Letby remained in the admin role and continued to receive her full salary until she was arrested by police two years later, in July 2018.
Pictured, Ruth Millward the former head of risk and patient safety at the Countess of Chester Hospital
Letby is serving 15 whole-life orders after being found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to end the lives of seven more between 2015 and 2016
Court artist drawing of Lucy Letby giving evidence during her trial at Manchester Crown Court
Another member of staff who worked in the same department previously told the Thirlwall Inquiry that Letby could have accessed patient notes and reports linking her to the baby deaths while working there.
Today Ms Millward admitted that ‘in retrospect’ it would have been more appropriate to redeploy Letby to another service.
She said Letby initially worked with the complaints team and it was ‘always’ expected the move would be temporary, for around eight weeks.
But, Ms Millward said, ‘events took over’ because an external review of the spike in unexpected deaths took longer than expected and Letby also launched an employment grievance against her redeployment.
‘At that point to be honest I really should have said I think we need to move her now because there was no end in sight,’ she said.
But Ms Millward, who left the Trust in 2017, denied claims that she had been overheard in conversations in corridors saying Letby was being made a scapegoat for poor medical care and a lack of teamworking.
Nicholas de la Poer KC, counsel to the inquiry, asked: ‘Did you think Letby was a scapegoat?’
Ms Millward replied: ‘No, there wasn’t sufficient information for me to make that comment. I generally thought that the unit was being run poorly, that was my view. I didn’t think she was necessarily being made a scapegoat. I was waiting for the invited (external) review to say what else is happening here.’
Millward admitted thinking the neo-natal unit was badly run but denied claims she was overheard saying Letby was a scapegoat for poor care. (General view of Countess of Chester Hospital)
Letby remained in the admin role and continued to receive her full salary until she was arrested by police two years later, in July 2018
Screen grab taken from body worn camera footage issued by Cheshire Constabulary of the arrest of Lucy Letby
The killer nurse was transferred to Ms Millward’s department in July 2016 after doctors demanded she be removed from looking after patients
Mr de la Poer added that, in a discussion with Cheshire Police in 2019, a police officer had recorded her saying ‘it was unjust that Letby was being investigated as a person of possible interest given the evidence presented by the consultants.’
The barrister asked: ‘Was that something you said to the police?’
Ms Millward said: ‘I don’t believe so, no. Stating something is unjust is not words I would use. I don’t even remember having a conversation around my view of Lucy at all.’
She also told the inquiry that the consultants’ opinions about Letby were not thought to have been valid because they had ‘by-passed’ proper governance routes and gone straight to the top executives at the hospital.
‘Because they bypassed all of that system and went directly to have informal conversations with the executive team through email, there is no traceability, there is no transparency,’ she said. ‘There is no critical challenge that you get from having those conversations in a wider group meeting.’
Letby, 34, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.
The inquiry is expected to sit until early 2025, with findings published by late autumn of that year.
