Here I will introduce the first project which our foundation is going to tackle. Our aim is to disseminate reliable information about the case, in particular concerning the science which could (and in our opinion, should) have been brought to bear on it, both medical and statistical. Perhaps even also insights from history, sociology, psychology. We, the founders of Science for Justice – NL, are scientists, but not medical scientists. One of us is a statistician with long experience in the use of statistics in medical science and in forensic science. He has been deeply involved in several past serial killer nurse cases.
Certainly, the similarities with the famous case of Lucia de Berk in the Netherlands are large, and once one knows more about both cases, horrifying. For the time being we must refer the reader to a blog post by one of the two founders of Foundation Science for Justice – NL: https://gill1109.com/2023/05/24/the-lucy-letby-case/.
A couple of other macro stats points.
The jump in MBRACE numbers that was considered an outlier is close to matched 25-26 times from 2015-2018 across the whole reported set. That data set also falls of course so this is only upward “volatility” and for that limited period. Of course we must bear in mind that smaller samples as in CofC. Notable too, is that higher care classified trusts have on average higher motality rates.
If one goes up a level of reporting for ONS infant mortality based on residence to regional levels eg Cheshire as a whole and Merseyside (with which transfers/overlap) might occur the data shows no large jumps between 2015-2020 bar a large fall in 2020 and an overall lower trend.
One would also want to look at mortality in the context of the pattern of neonatal admissions in general and NICU in particular.
Couple egs where patterns might be discerned are “Term admissions to neonatal units in England” BMJ Open may 2017. “Are infant mortality rates increasing in England?” Journal of Public healths Vol43 no3
“Hospitalisation after birth of infants: cross sectional analysis….” BMC Pediatrics Jones et al 2018 18:390
For staffing issues one would want full rotas, for incidents one would want all “spells” and “episodes”
and for both one would want these connected.