Role in the case
As HR Director, Hodkinson had responsibility for the personnel-management decisions that structured the Trust’s response to the cluster: the reassignment of Ms Letby to clerical duties in June 2016 (after further deaths in that month), the subsequent apology-letter sequence in which consultants were pressured to apologise to Ms Letby, and the grievance-management framework within which the September 2016 joint letter was then handled. Her Thirlwall evidence addresses these decisions in documentary detail.
The apology-letter sequence
The apology-letter sequence is documented as a principal institutional-failure finding the Thirlwall Inquiry will address. Consultants who had raised concerns were pressured to sign letters of apology to Ms Letby as part of the Trust’s HR handling of the dispute. The Thirlwall evidence identifies the specific HR-management role in this sequence.
Read alongside
- Tony Chambers — former CEO
- Ian Harvey — former Medical Director
- Alison Kelly — former Director of Nursing
- Analysis: the apology-letter sequence
- Analysis: doctor-nurse power dynamics
Source
Thirlwall Inquiry evidence bundles; Countess of Chester HR records; contemporaneous UK broadsheet coverage.