Context
In September 2016, seven consultant paediatricians at the Countess of Chester Hospital jointly wrote to the Trust’s executive team demanding that Cheshire Police be contacted about the cluster of unexpected deaths on the neonatal unit. The letter was exhibited at the Thirlwall Inquiry. The executives did not contact police until May 2017 — nearly eight months later. The document below is summarised from the exhibit; the full letter is available on the Thirlwall Inquiry site.
Summary of the letter
Consultant paediatricians
We, the undersigned consultants, are no longer able to continue to discharge our professional duties in good conscience without an external investigation by the police.
Consultant paediatricians
We have raised our concerns through the appropriate internal channels on multiple occasions since July 2015. We now believe that the cluster of unexpected deaths on the neonatal unit, and the common factor we have independently identified across those deaths, require an investigation of a kind that this Trust is not competent to undertake on its own.
Consultant paediatricians
We write jointly because any one of us could be dismissed if we wrote alone, and because we do not wish any single clinician to bear the weight of this concern.
What to read alongside this
See Dr Brearey’s Thirlwall evidence and Tony Chambers’s Thirlwall evidence, which address the executive response to this letter.