The challenges of healthcare regulation using the Letby case as an example.

Abstract

This article presents reflections made during the preparation of a research study's data analysis, which focused on the question of processual rigour within the Nursing and Midwifery Council's (NMC) revalidation regulatory approach. The analysis and synthesis have led to reflections on revalidation's utility from the perspective of the identification of the criminal actions of the former nurse, Lucy Letby. The suggestions for strengthening revalidation requirements, presented by the participants in the author's research project in response to their personal experience of revalidation, were also reflected in the contemporary professional and media reports following Letby's court case. Letby was found guilty of seven counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder of babies in her care in 2023 and one count of attempted murder in 2024. These reflections are presented within a discussion regarding what Letby's revalidation experience may potentially have been. The suggested augmentations to revalidation acknowledge the value in its gateway role to being able to work as a nurse. How nurses maintain their continued professional registration through the revalidation process is explored through the concept of Larson's professional project (1977) from the neo-Weberian tradition of the sociology of the professions. This study engaged an interpretivist philosophical standpoint, using social constructionism.