The Ockenden Review into maternity and neonatal services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust was damning. It confirmed what families, staff and previous reviews have been saying for years: the failures in maternity care are serious, repeated and systemic.

The Nottingham review examined more than 2,500 family cases and engaged with more than 830 current and former staff. It found long-standing failures, including women and families not being listened to, poor responses when things went wrong and missed opportunities to act on concerns that were raised consistently by staff.

Within days, a second review by Baroness Amos – the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation – widened the lens by reviewing care across 12 NHS trusts. It found consistent national patterns: staffing did not match demand, services were under pressure from rising complexity and capacity problems, leadership was lacking, responses to harm were often slow or defensive and inequalities affected women’s experiences and outcomes. Families affected by the Nottingham scandal are now calling for a statutory public inquiry into maternity and neonatal care across England, arguing that “safe care can only be consistently delivered when the full truth is known”. That call deserves to be taken seriously. Accountability cannot be treated as optional.

But a decision to hold another inquiry must take into account the fact that public inquiries do not, in themselves, deliver change. They make findings and recommendations to inform change made by others.

A statutory inquiry has powers to compel witnesses to give evidence. A non-statutory inquiry does not have these powers. However, it does not follow that statutory inquiries are inherently superior. Each type of inquiry has its own strengths. Statutory status alone does not guarantee greater learning, better........

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