An under-fire NHS trust claims it is ‘difficult’ to say whether it could have prevented the Nottingham attacks
Emma Webber, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, James Coates and David Webber pictured outside Mary Ward House – where the Nottingham Inquiry is taking place(Image: Joseph Raynor/Nottingham Post)
An NHS trust says it should have ‘challenged’ Nottinghamshire Police on not being able to contact families bereaved by the Nottingham attacks for six months.
A senior leader at the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) has admitted that the delay – for which the chief executive has already apologised – was “simply wrong”.
The delay meant that those bereaved by Valdo Calocane’s attacks of June 13, 2023, did not hear from the trust that treated him until the December of that year.
NHFT treated the paranoid schizophrenic for two years and, at the public inquiry into his killings, senior leaders have admitted “repeated failures” in their handling of Calocane – chiefly their decision to discharge him months before his attacks when healthcare staff “lost” him.
At the inquiry’s hearing on Thursday (May 21), NHFT was asked about its delay in contacting the bereaved families of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates.
In its opening statement to the inquiry, NHFT suggested Nottinghamshire Police was behind its decision not to contact the families and a senior leader said on Thursday that the force should have been challenged on its ‘directive’.
NHFT’s opening statement to the inquiry said: “Regrettably, the trust has found itself navigating a difficult conflict between wanting to do the right thing and supporting people in a compassionate way, whilst also operating within the boundaries and framework around criminal proceedings and data protection.
“The trust believes that, in similar circumstances, it would push back more robustly now than it did in 2023.
“Key learnings for the trust include the extent to which the trust allowed itself to be directed by the police in terms of what contact could be had with victims and their families.”
Angela Patrick, asking questions on behalf of the bereaved families on Thursday, said: “It wasn’t until December after these events that the first contact letters were received by the families.
“That was almost six months after their loved ones were killed. That was simply wrong wasn’t it?”
Diane Hull, the chief nurse at NHFT who gave evidence on Thursday, replied: “Yes. You’re quite right it’s wrong.”
Diane Hull pictured giving evidence to the Nottingham Inquiry(Image: Nottingham Inquiry)
Ms Patrick asked: “This delay lacked both common sense and compassion, didn’t it?”
Ms Hull acknowledged: “We should have done more to find the addresses and challenge the police directive around contact.”
Ms Patrick finally said: “Here were people who had been bereaved at the hands of a patient whose care you had been responsible for.
“NHS England or other national guidance aside, didn’t compassion simply require you to have reached out sooner?”
Ms Hull replied: “I’m so sorry, yes.”
Ms Hull was unable to say in her evidence explicitly that NHFT may have been able to prevent the Nottingham attacks if it had done its job better, despite others including former chair Paul Devlin admitting so.
Asked for her view on the situation, Ms Hull said: “I think it would be difficult and I don’t think I could say that the terrible events of June 13 could have been prevented, but what I can say with absolute clarity is that we failed to exhaust all of the options and all of the interventions available to us.
“Given the kind of things we’ve heard, particularly through the inquiry, it does lead me to think that had we, at different points during his care and our contacts, had we and others taken different actions it might have impacted the outcome.”
Rachel Langdale KC, counsel to the inquiry, challenged this by saying: “Well very likely impacted the outcome – not might.”
Ms Hull replied again: “It may have.” The Nottingham Inquiry continues – with around two weeks of evidence left before the inquiry’s final report is put together by May 2026.