Change needed to tackle suspected NHS ‘bad apples’, Letby inquiry told

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Formal procedures should be put in place to handle suspected “bad apples” in the NHS, the inquiry over the crimes of killer nurse Lucy Letby has heard.

An expert witness told the Thirlwall Inquiry the challenges of catching those who seek to do harm were illustrated by the cases of mass murderer Dr Harold Shipman and another child killer nurse, Beverley Allitt.

Giving evidence today, Professor Mary Dixon-Woods, from the University of Cambridge, said a doctor who began to suspect Allitt of harming infants in Grantham, Lincolnshire, in 1991 was “initially treated as having fanciful ideas and was not treated seriously”.

She said: “Partly this was because there wasn’t a recognition that bad apple behaviour can sometimes be the source of problems because there wasn’t a very clear procedure for dealing with it.” Meanwhile, Shipman was a “snake” who managed to wriggle through holes in patient safety systems to commit his terrible actions before he was finally detected, she said. READ MORE: Child killer Lucy Letby issues statement as she 'maintains her innocence' Examples of bad apples were those who persisted with grossly incompetent clinical practice or demonstrated unacceptable behaviours such as bullying and racism, she said, adding: “There are also those who demonstrate transgressive behaviours which reach the threshold for criminality and that might include murder, assault, rape or other violations.” She said the danger of assuming that such bad apples do not exist was highlighted by the Clothier Inquiry into Allitt’s crimes which concluded “the main lesson the Grantham disaster should serve is to heighten awareness in all those caring for children of the possibility of a malevolent intervention as a cause of