'Must be an inquiry where those called to attend must do so.'

MP for Ellesmere Port

LUCY Letby will have the rest of her still young life to recall each and every day when she carried out cruel and calculated murders of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

For all we know the 33-year-old herself may live for a long time but we now know all of those years will be spent behind bars.

That will be of no consolation to the families of those babies who are likely to be beset with grief for years as a result of the murders and attempted murders that neo-natal nurse Letby has been convicted of committing.

However, it will hopefully be of some comfort that Letby has received a whole life tariff on her sentence – the most severe punishment available to Mr Justice Goss who has presided throughout her trial at Manchester Crown Court.

As the judge said: “This was a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder. You will spend the rest of your life in prison.”

Some readers may not be aware that the Countess is the main hospital not only for urban and rural Chester, but also for Ellesmere Port residents and those living over the border in the towns and villages of Deeside. It is of course also the case that many constituents work there as well and the shock of this must have impacted them hugely as well. The City of Chester MP Samantha Dixon MBE, has written to Steve Barclay MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, calling for a full scale statutory inquiry into all that went on. I am in support of that because when we say full statutory inquiry, we mean just that. It must be an inquiry where those called to attend must do so.

It has to be that everyone who has evidence to offer must be prepared to contribute to the findings of this inquiry, so that killings of this type will never take place again at the Countess of Chester or any other hospital across the UK. The tales that have emerged since the trial of clinical staff who raised concerns having those concerns dismissed by the management of the Trust at the time are particularly concerning, especially when those who were in management at the time are still in positions of authority elsewhere within the NHS. I have a concern that they were more preoccupied with protecting the reputation of the Trust than getting to the truth of the deaths and so they must be thoroughly questioned and challenged on how they handled it.There have been other similar inquiries in British hospitals where atrocities have occurred – the Mid-Staffordshire inquiry being one of them – and still the vile actions of medical staff like Letby go on. It does nothing to inspire confidence in standards of care in National Health Service hospitals. And it wrongly calls into question the skills and expertise of the thousands of NHS professionals whose characters remain rightly unblemished as they go about their duties on a daily basis.