STAFFING levels at a neonatal unit were “quite poor at times with an inadequate skill mix”, murder-accused nurse Lucy Letby told police.

Following her arrest Letby, 33, was interviewed at length about numerous collapses of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.

She told detectives she had concerns about a rise in the mortality rate. Manchester Crown Court was told on Thursday, April 27.

Letby said: “We’d all just noticed, as a team in general, the nursing staff, that this was a rise compared to previous years. That we were meeting babies that had a lot more complex needs that we weren’t seeing a few years ago .

“And it was talked about that this was something that was unusual.”

The detective asked: “Is there anything that you feel us as an investigation need to look at concerning the amount of deaths and collapses over a short period of time?”

Letby replied: “I think the staffing, maybe, needs, I’m not saying that staffing has caused it, but I think staffing levels were quite poor at times with an inadequate skill mix sometimes.

“And I think a lot of people, like myself, were doing a lot of additional shifts and overtime, and having shifts changed round at short notice.

“ I think a lot of people were feeling the strain physically and emotionally. I don’t think a lot of support was offered to the team throughout this event with the deaths and things.

“There’s also some issues with the unit just in terms of it’s very small. We don’t always have the equipment we need, we have to go and get it from other units, or pushed for space, and trying to look after sick babies in not always ideal environments.

“And I personally just found during this, that there wasn’t always a very clear and supportive sort of management, structural, medical support particularly towards nursing staff. That’s a personal opinion.”

The detective asked: “So do you think any of these deaths and collapses occurred due to poor care?”

Letby replied: “I don’t think anybody intentionally gave poor care but I think maybe if staffing had been better people may not have been caring for as many babies at once, or would have had different shift patterns maybe or the doctors would have been more readily available.”

The detective said: “And what about equipment, do you think any of these babies had collapsed or died because the equipment was around, or the lack of equipment?”

Letby said: “I think there’s been delays with them having some of the support they need because we’ve had to go and get equipment, yes.”

The detective said: “If you say lack of staff, lack of equipment, doctors not reacting maybe as quickly as they should do, can you apply any of those three factors to the babies we’ve spoken about here?”

Letby said: “Yes for some of them I think, if staffing had been better then maybe there would have been more people around for that baby.”

The defendant, originally from Hereford, denies the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of 10 others.