Complaint
Four viewers complained the programme contained inaccurate information about the number of occasions when breathing tubes in young babies became dislodged, which occurred when Lucy Letby was on duty in 2012 and 2015. The ECU considered whether it met the standards for accuracy set out in the BBC Editorial Guidelines.
Outcome
The programme reported that a review by Liverpool Women’s hospital had found Lucy Letby had worked approximately 50 shifts where a ventilator was involved and that babies’ breathing tubes came out on around 20 of them, or 40 per cent.
As the programme subsequently acknowledged, these figures were wrong. The 40 per cent figure, which was first mentioned in the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024, only applied to Lucy Letby’s work at the hospital in 2015.
The original figure did not therefore meet the BBC’s standards for accuracy, but the ECU considered sufficient action had been taken in the form of a published correction and re-editing of the programme for it to consider the matter resolved.
The ECU did not uphold a number of related issues chiefly on the overall impartiality of the programme but including a specific concern that the average for incidents when tubes became dislodged when in Ms Letby’s care and when not in Ms Letby’s care, was not made on a comparable basis. However both figures were drawn from the same hospital and in the ECU’s view it was therefore appropriate to include them in the programme.
Resolved