Wes Streeting was the key note speaker at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists World Congress on 23 June 2025 using this as the platform from which to announce his plan for a rapid investigation into NHS maternity care, investigating up to 10 of the most concerning maternity and neonatal units, including Sussex.
What he announced was a system-wide look at NHS maternity and neonatal care, bringing together lessons from past inquiries to create one clear, national set of actions to improve care across every NHS maternity service. This is a step forward but is not the national, statutory, inquiry that many harmed families have been calling for and the campaign for this continues.
The opposing views on a national statutory inquiry
A statutory public inquiry is a specific type of investigation set up by the government to respond to events of major public concern or to consider controversial public policy issues and when considering this option the government should take account of the views of the different stakeholders.
Over the last year, Wes Streeting has been meeting with families who have been bereaved or harmed by maternity services. Many of these families have been pushing for a statutory public inquiry, in particular members of the Maternity Safety Alliance who have had this as one of their key objectives since their inception.
Mr Streeting has also met with representatives for the NHS, taking into account the views of the service providers, who appear to be relieved by the decision not to make this investigation a statutory one.
In an email from Gill Walton, the Chief Executive of the Royal College of Midwives, to an unidentified recipient, which has been shared on X this week, she is seen to comment after the announcement that had the decision been for a full national inquiry the impact on the services would have been huge, diverting attention from services for up to 5 years to come up with the same recommendations that all staff already know. She referenced a conversation with Wes Streeting a week before the announcement and also felt that he understood the toll that the inability to provide safe maternity care was taking on maternity workforce morale.
It is clear there are very different competing priorities for those different stakeholders but, fundamentally, all parties accept that there is a need for change.
What is the difference between a maternity inquiry and a maternity investigation?
The concerns about resources are likely to be an important part of the decision making process to hold a national maternity investigation rather than a statutory inquiry but what is most important is holding an inquiry that can drive real change.
There are many important powers that a statutory inquiry has that an investigation does not, including the ability to:
- Compel witnesses to provide evidence
- Provide certain legal safeguards
- Maintain clearer limits on the Government’s involvement
There is a history of some non-statutory inquiries (akin to the investigation announced by Mr Streeting) being converted to a statutory inquiry to ensure engagement by witnesses, as was the case for the well-known Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, and there is likely to be continuing pressure for a similar transition to take place in the maternity sphere. Given the serious concerns about a culture problem in the NHS, the ability of a statutory inquiry to force engagement from NHS staff members is considered by many harmed families to be an important component to any inquiry to ensure true accountability for harm caused to date and for transparency to truly understand the systemic issues at play in maternity care.
Charlotte and James Bassett, whose daughter, Norah died 5 hours after she was born at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital comment:
“We are grateful that Wes Streeting has shown empathy and engaged with harmed patients.
However, we have a maternity service that is dangerous and causes further harm in just the pursuit of truth, with multiple local investigations finding the same issues and no implementation of recommendations. Without a statutory requirement for those parties to answer why they chose to allow and continue to allow this, on a national scale so as to include the smaller trusts, true reform cannot be achieved. We don’t feel that these measures go far enough and will still be calling for a public inquiry.”
Legal perspective on the national maternity investigation
Helen Hammond, maternity and birth injury lawyer, comments:
“Numerous maternity investigations have taken place over the last 10 years, with independent experts providing thoughtful outcomes and identifying areas where change is needed. What we have lacked is actual change. Recognising that maternity care need considering at a national level as well as at an individual hospital level is a step in the right direction, but I can understand the remaining calls for a statutory public inquiry into maternity care to ensure that there is real accountability in the process to drive learning and change.”
Support for families affected by poor maternity care
At CL Medilaw, our national team of birth and maternity injury lawyers is dedicated to advocating for families who have had a traumatic birth experience due to failings in NHS maternity care. For more information about how we can support families through birth injuries, please visit our dedicated birth injury page.
If you require legal advice following a traumatic birth, please contact us today to arrange a no-obligation consultation.
