Murray Explores Forcing Maternity Inquiry Refusers to Testify
Health Secretary James Murray is seeking advice on whether the Hillsborough Law’s duty of candour could be applied retrospectively to compel the senior clinicians who refused to give evidence to the Nottingham maternity review. Their refusal was “totally unacceptable”, he said: “I cannot understand why they thought that was okay.” Of meeting affected families, he said: “I felt numb… quite winded really by the sheer scale and depth of what has happened here.”
The review into Nottingham University Hospitals — 520 potentially avoidable outcomes, the largest maternity inquiry in NHS history — approached 66 senior staff and interviewed only 35, and the government has already legislated so that future refusers face up to two years in prison. The live question is retrospection, which is legally contentious by design. Murray also backed the demand that refusers appear before the health select committee: “If the select committee invite them, I think they should say yes.” The paused Public Office (Accountability) Bill now carries this freight into the Burnham era. Watch the committee chair’s response and the legal advice’s conclusion.