Svilena

When it’s eventually recognised that Lucy Letby’s murder convictions were the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, no doubt people will ask: How did this happen? How was this even possible? So I want to put it on the record now because, frankly, I have no…

Some babies died avoidably at the Countess of Chester Hospital. The evidence that they died of accidental harm appears to be far stronger than the evidence that they died of deliberate harm. And yet the coroner didn’t spot either. Why not? My column in @PrivateEyeNews today.

This is a chocolate teapot change. It won’t work because recognising negligence requires genuine accountability, thorough investigation by competent professionals, and a final decision-maker who is actually committed to doing the right thing. In a system run by toxic…

This. I know plenty of consultants who have been scapegoated and driven out of their roles in the NHS simply for raising well evidenced concerns. In fact, this often happens more to consultants than to nurses - I suspect they are more likely to walk into it since some still are…

Important point. Unions are at best hit or miss. Too often, their representatives are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. I’ve helped numerous people push back against harmful workplace dynamics, only to find that the union advice they received was misguided at best,…

Did the managers get something wrong here? Oh yes they did. The managers and Letby absolutely made mistakes. Let’s be clear: she would NEVER have been safe to return to a unit where those who orchestrated a sustained smear campaign against her remained in positions of power -…

I was genuinely shocked when LJ Thirlwall chose to ignore a group of highly respected professionals last year after a letter that @PeterElston1 and I wrote to her last year co-signed by many eminent statisticians, scientists and doctors. The letter we wrote was unprecedented in…

Excellent article @Mephitisblog Much more will eventually come out by diary experts in due course. One of the most disturbing patterns emerging in carer MoJ cases is the reckless misinterpretation of diary entries. And why wouldn’t that happen? In this legal system,…

It looks like the Channel 5 documentary is back available online. I am really glad I spoke up last year, especially when many of my colleagues — including some in very senior positions — chose to stay silent, even though they had concerns. At the time, I didn’t know whether…

Classic scapegoating 101: ignore the black-and-white evidence presented by the genuine whistleblower, while the lies of the real culprits get repeated until they’re accepted as truth by the ignorant and incompetent. Character assassination replaces accountability. If the NHS can…

“A Cheshire police spokesperson described Davies’s former position as “an administrative role within the Cheshire coroner’s office”. Steph, are my eyes deceiving me or did Cheshire police lie in writing within their response to the Guardian? Or are they saying that they allow…

Incredibly brave of Miss Davies to speak out. She confirms what was already clear from the notes - key information wasn’t disclosed to the coroner. I’ve written to the new Cheshire coroner, LJ Thirlwall, and Cheshire Police asking them to investigate one doctor in particular for…

I have a firm policy of not engaging with individuals who exhibit trolling behaviours, regardless of any supposed relevance they may think they have — and in Snowdon’s case, I see none. I therefore blocked him a long time ago. Still, I did manage to screenshot as it’s wise to…

There are countless other absurd discrepancies like this, on top of the outright medical nonsense presented at trial. I can understand how some of the medical claims might have seemed plausible to laypeople, but how are there still questions about the rest - when so much of it is…

Thank you to @drphilhammond and all other investigative journalists who have exposed this disgraceful miscarriage of justice. Without your work there’s no doubt an innocent person would die in jail whilst those who were either willfully ignorant or outright deceptive in putting…

Chris, will you also be addressing how any new whistleblowing protection systems will include safeguards to distinguish between genuine whistleblowers and those acting vexatiously? Without a clear commitment to properly examining evidence to make this distinction, such a system…

Ten years ago, Bill Kirkup spoke with rare honesty about the damage caused by cover-ups and the lack of accountability in healthcare. A decade on, not only have things not improved — in many cases, they’ve gotten worse. The pattern is painfully familiar now: someone speaks up.…

If you’re going to arrest the managers for not spotting murder, you may as well arrest the pathologists who performed the six post-mortems, the coroner who got it wrong at inquest, the visiting team from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Care Quality…

James, I completely understand the points you raise. However, on the issue of the "framework of accountability being confused and ineffective" - the reality is that the framework itself isn't always the problem; it's often the lack of consistent and fair application of what can…