Appalling story of hospital mal-administration

It is truly shocking to read the BBC article that came out after Lucy Letby's conviction for murdering 7 babies (and trying to kill 6 others).   It starts:

Hospital bosses failed to investigate allegations against Lucy Letby and tried to silence doctors, the lead consultant at the neonatal unit where she worked has told the BBC.

The hospital also delayed calling the police despite months of warnings that the nurse may have been killing babies.

The unit's lead consultant Dr Stephen Brearey first raised concerns about Letby in October 2015.

No action was taken and she went on to attack five more babies, killing two.

Further down in the report (my bold):

We spoke to the lead consultant in the unit - who first raised concerns about Letby - and also examined hospital documents. The investigation reveals a catalogue of failures and raises serious questions about how the hospital responded to the deaths.

Dr Brearey says he demanded Letby be taken off duty in June 2016, after the final two murders. Hospital management initially refused.

The BBC investigation also found:

• The hospital's top manager demanded the doctors write an apology to Letby and told them to stop making allegations against her
• Two consultants were ordered to attend mediation with Letby, even though they suspected she was killing babies
• When she was finally moved, Letby was assigned to the risk and patient safety office, where she had access to sensitive documents from the neonatal unit and was in close proximity to senior managers whose job it was to investigate her
• Deaths were not reported appropriately, which meant the high fatality rate could not be picked up by the wider NHS system, a manager who took over after the deaths has told the BBC

 It just seems incredible that hospital management clung for so long to "it's just a coincidence" that the rate of death (and near death) of neonatal babies had soared in that unit, and all happened when Letby was on shift:

Before June 2015, there were about two or three baby deaths a year on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital. But in the summer of 2015, something unusual was happening.

In June alone, three babies died within the space of two weeks. The deaths were unexpected, so Dr Stephen Brearey, the lead consultant at the neonatal unit, called a meeting with the unit manager, Eirian Powell, and the hospital's director of nursing Alison Kelly....

...by October 2015, things had changed. Two more babies had died and Letby had been on shift for both of them. ...

And it wasn't just the unexpected deaths. Other babies were suffering non-fatal collapses, meaning they needed emergency resuscitation or help with breathing, with no apparent clinical explanation. Letby was always on duty.

I can't imagine how some of the families of babies who died late in her killing spree must feel...