Datix records — the system that saw a struggling unit
The prosecution’s claim: The prosecution argued it did not rely on the Datix incident record because, it said, Letby covered her tracks.
Prosecution claim
The prosecution argued it did not rely on the Datix incident record because, it said, Letby covered her tracks.
Counter-evidence
Datix is the mandatory NHS incident-reporting system — every crash call, equipment failure, deterioration and medication error is supposed to be logged. The 2015–2016 Datix record for the unit — partly examined at the Thirlwall Inquiry — shows a unit under severe clinical strain: staffing gaps, sewage and plumbing failures, late transfers of extremely preterm infants, pharmacy mix-ups. The Panel argues that this picture, which the jury never saw in full, is itself exculpatory: it explains the cluster of deteriorations without a deliberate-harm hypothesis.
Key point: The Datix record is evidence not of wrongdoing by one nurse, but of a unit operating outside its safe envelope.
What the jury heard
The jury was largely not shown the full Datix record — the Crown's case didn't rely on it, and the defence's access was limited by disclosure.
What the Panel says
The Panel considers the wider Datix picture consistent with a unit caring for babies beyond its designation. That context is itself alternative explanation.
What independent experts add
- Datix logs a known sewage back-up and related equipment failures in the 2015–16 period.
- Medication dispensing errors are logged against the hospital pharmacy that supplied the unit's TPN.
- Staffing-gap entries (consultant-rota and senior-nurse-shift gaps) are present at high frequency through the indictment period and constitute a documented Level-2-unit-overload signal.
- Equipment-failure entries include the documented sewage back-up onto the neonatal unit floor, identified by independent reviewers as a plausible infection-vector that the prosecution did not address.