Former police officers including a murder detective have been hired by NHS hospitals in a move that campaigners have warned risks discouraging whistleblowers.

The Telegraph can reveal that retired officers have been employed by a trust currently under scrutiny for its treatment of doctors who raise patient safety concerns. One has taken up a patient safety incident investigator role worth more than 57,000 a year.

Meanwhile, a senior detective has been called into multiple trusts on an ad hoc basis to conduct investigations.

A leading patient group called on the NHS to be transparent about exactly how such personnel are being used, “given the ongoing concerns about how such roles interact with whistleblowers”.

It follows heightened scrutiny of the way in which the health service deals with doctors who raise issues in the wake of the scandal of Lucy Letby, the neonatal nurse who murdered seven babies and attempted to kill six others.

Doctors at the Countess of Chester Hospital attempted to sound the alarm, but claim they were then subject to investigations themselves.

Timeline

Lucy Letby case

2011-2014

Letby graduates from the University of Chester with a nursing degree and qualifies as a Band 5 nurse (Sept 2011)

Starts working full-time at the Countess of Chester, living in hospital grounds accommodation (Jan 2012)

Undertakes neonatal qualified in speciality training to work with intensive care infants (March 2014)

Summer 2015

First murder - Baby A (June 8 2015)

Attempted...

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