Context
Dr Murthy Saladi, consultant paediatrician, was among the signatories of the September 2016 joint letter demanding police involvement. His Thirlwall Inquiry evidence is one of the collective record of consultant voices warning Trust management about the cluster of deaths.
Key ground
Dr Saladi described relationships between consultants, junior doctors and nurses at the Countess as good throughout 2015-17, though he said the consultant body was under strain because “we were understaffed and we were having busy periods and during that time there were more unwell children”. He had little direct contact with senior management, raising concerns instead through Dr Jayaram and Dr Brearey. By late June 2016 he had come to think the cluster needed external scrutiny: in an email to colleagues he wrote that “one of the teams who can deal with suspicion is the police because we are not good with dealing with suspicion”.
When Mr Harvey emailed the consultants that action was being taken and “All emails cease forthwith”, Dr Saladi recalled senior managers explaining that, because the dispute was “coming across as doctors versus nurses”, an independent body including the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health would be brought in before any decision on the police. He gave evidence to the Coroner at Child A’s inquest on 10 October 2016 without telling the Coroner about the wider concerns he and his colleagues held by then that deliberate harm might be responsible.