Role in the case
Dr Newby was part of the consultant team who identified the cluster of unexpected deaths and collapses on the neonatal unit in 2015-2016 and co-signed the September 2016 joint letter to the executive team asking for police referral. Her Thirlwall evidence addresses the clinical picture on the unit, the escalation sequence, and the institutional response.
The joint-letter context
The September 2016 letter was signed by seven consultants (Dr Stephen Brearey, Dr John Gibbs, Dr Ravi Jayaram, and others including Dr Newby). It was declined by the executive team; the RCPCH service review was commissioned instead. The apology-letter sequence in which the consultants were subsequently pressured to apologise to Ms Letby is documented at Thirlwall and is a principal institutional-failure finding the Inquiry will address.
Read alongside
- Dr Stephen Brearey
- Dr Ravi Jayaram
- Dr John Gibbs
- Transcript: Dr Newby Thirlwall evidence
- Analysis: the apology-letter sequence
- Evidence: the RCPCH 2017 report
Source
Thirlwall Inquiry evidence bundles; consultants’ joint letter September 2016; Countess of Chester Trust records; contemporaneous UK broadsheet coverage.