Nottingham killings preventable if NHS 'did its job' - Streeting

The health secretary has said "three innocent people might still be alive" if the NHS had "done its job" in treating Valdo Calocane in the years running up to the Nottingham attacks.

- Jessica Murray

Wes Streeting said the deaths of Grace O'Malley-Kumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates in were "preventable if the NHS had been there when it should have been".

"The hard truth here - which is, I think, hard for the whole country to hear, let alone me is that had the NHS done its job, had there not been multiple fundamental failures, three innocent people might still be alive," he said. "That's why I totally understand why [the victims families] accused the NHS of having blood on its hands."

A Care Quality Commission (CQC) review of the mental health care that Calocane received in the years before the killings found a "series of errors, omissions and misjudgments" in his treatment, which Streeting said was "deeply distressing".