In her final report on the then University of Chester student in July 2011, Ms Lightfoot wrote: “At the moment Lucy requires much more support, prompting and supervision than I would expect at this stage to allow her to qualify as a competent practitioner.”
She said she found that Letby’s clinical knowledge was “not where it should be”, and that she “struggled” to retain information on medication dosages and to recognise side effects of common drugs.
Any student who failed their final placement had the opportunity to repeat it and achieve the competencies they had not achieved in a four week retrieval, the inquiry heard.
Ms Lightfoot said at the time she believed Letby would not have been in a position to be signed off within four weeks, so “could not objectively continue” as her mentor.
Letby’s next mentor, Sarah Jane Murphy, said she was “conflicted” about passing the student nurse in light of Ms Lightfoot’s comments but said she had met the standards required after the retrieval placement.
