Nurses are among 400 healthcare workers who are calling for a review of Lucy Letby’s convictions, in an open letter sent to UK health unions.
Nineteen Nurses, a coalition of current and former NHS workers, has urged unions to “stand with us” and protect the professions from the “weaponisation of blame” in the NHS.
“If a nurse can be convicted in such a manner, without irrefutable evidence, then any nurse could be next”
Nineteen Nurses
Letby, 35, was convicted in August 2023 of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others while working as a nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit between 2015 and 2016.
She was then found guilty after a retrial in June 2024 of attempting to murder a seventh baby.
Letby is currently serving multiple life sentences for these crimes and has made unsuccessful attempts to appeal.
Nineteen Nurses began as a group of just 19 nurses, who wrote to prime minister Sir Keir Starmer last year about concerns about the former neonatal nurse’s convictions.
Since then, the group has amassed more than 420 members, including current and retired professionals from across the health service.
In their latest statement to health unions, the group argued that Letby had been imprisoned “without clear forensic evidence, based largely on circumstantial claims and disputed expert testimony”.
“It is not just Lucy Letby’s liberty at stake, but the very foundation of trust and safety for nurses working across the UK,” the statement said.
Nineteen Nurses further warned that, in wake of the Letby convictions, “nurses are afraid”.
“We are being told, in no uncertain terms, that if something goes wrong, despite best efforts, despite systemic failure, we may be the ones held criminally responsible,” the statement said.
“That even in high-risk, unpredictable environments like neonatal intensive care, outcomes that are out of our control can be framed as personal failings.
“This isn’t justice – this is scapegoating.”
This echoed what Mark McDonald, Letby’s new barrister, told Nursing Times earlier this year.
He said he had been contacted by nurses across the country who were “frightened” that “the finger could easily be pointed at them”.
Similarly, Nineteen Nurses warned that nurses and other healthcare professionals concerned about Letby’s conviction were being “silenced” due to “professional pressure” or fear of disciplinary action or other career-ending repercussions if they spoke out.
Sir David Davis, a senior Conservative MP who has been an ardent supporter of a Letby retrial, previously said he had been contacted by nurses who worked with Letby who had been told not to give evidence on her behalf as “it would damage their career”.
The open letter comes as, in recent months, criticism of the investigation into the Letby case, the trial process and the legitimacy of expert witnesses has ramped up.
The former neonatal nurse’s legal team has asked the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to review her case and send it back to the Court of Appeal for reconsideration.
It follows a report published in February by a panel of 14 international paediatric and neonatal experts, which claimed there was “no medical evidence to support malfeasance” in any of the cases heard at Letby’s trial.
Meanwhile, protestors gathered outside Liverpool Town Hall in March to declare Letby’s innocence, as the inquiry investigating the circumstances surrounding her crimes heard its closing statements.
Lady Justice Thirlwall, chair of the Thirlwall Inquiry, later ruled that it would not be paused despite requests to do so while the CCRC reviews the case.
Amid the criticism, the police department that investigated the Letby case issued a statement last month dismissing scrutiny from those questioning her convictions as mostly “ill-informed”.
Nineteen Nurses has now called on the UK’s healthcare unions to recognise that the Letby case is “a profound threat to the safety of both staff and patients”.
The statement said: “We demand a truly independent review into this case, free from institutional bias and media influence.
“We ask our unions to stand with us in protecting the profession from the weaponisation of blame in a system already buckling under immense strain.
“Letby’s case is not an isolated fear—it has sent shockwaves through our community.
“If a nurse can be convicted in such a manner, without irrefutable evidence, then any nurse could be next.
“We are Nineteen Nurses with hundreds of members and we will not stay silent.”
The Royal College of Nursing and Unison declined to comment.
