The chair of the government’s national investigation into maternity care says she has not ruled out recommending a statutory inquiry into “shocking” standards of NHS care.
Baroness Valerie Amos is set to make full recommendations to the government in June.
Her latest comments come following an interim report, published on Thursday, made up of interviews with 400 families and accounts from 8,000 people.
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Speaking to BBC Radio’s Today programme on Thursday, she said initial findings from the investigation were “deep and broad” and “shocking”.
She said: “The experiences have been very difficult to listen to, but all of those families have been very clear that one of the reasons that they have been prepared to talk to us – because of course, this is about repeating some extremely distressing and traumatic experiences – is because they want to see change.
“They want it to be different for those who come after them, and this investigation is all about that.”
Asked whether she would recommend a statutory inquiry, which would have stronger legal powers than her review, she replied: “I haven’t got to the point of what recommendations I will be making.
“I’m not ruling anything in or out at that at this stage, I cannot.”
Several campaign groups have called for a statutory public inquiry to take place, which would have legal powers to compel witnesses – the current investigation does not.
Anita Jewitt, head of medical negligence at law firm Stewarts, said she welcomed the Amos review, but added, “When systemic themes around leadership, culture, discrimination, and accountability are being identified across successive reviews like Amos’s, it begs the question, should this trigger a statutory public inquiry?"
She added: “Baroness Amos has made clear her ambition to create a set of national recommendations, but a key question is how much of that systemic change can realistically be achieved within the remit of a non-statutory review ... A statutory public inquiry makes it far more difficult for accountability to be deflected, and can provide a level of scrutiny that reassures families that no stone has been left unturned."
In her report, Baroness Amos said families who have suffered a stillbirth feel the law “incentivised” the recording of deaths as such, “as this prevents the case from being investigated by a coroner”.
When asked about the issue on Thursday morning by Sophy Ridge, Baroness Amos said, “Many families feel the only recourse they have is to push for a coroner’s inquest, but the law is very clear that the baby has to have taken a breath. Now, who decides that?
“There are families that feel very strongly that they have seen a sign of life, and yet they have been told there has been no sign of life.”
When asked if the law should change, she said the team was looking at the issue in “detail”, but that it was too soon to say what recommendations her team might make.
In December, Baroness Amos revealed that in the last decade there had been 748 recommendations from inquiries and investigations into maternity services, but that change had been “too slow”.
A final report will be published in June with a set of recommendations.
In the foreword to her interim report, published on Thursday, Baroness Amos said “time and time again” families and staff see the same issues repeated despite numerous reviews and calls for change. “This cycle must stop,” she said.
The Amos investigation comes following previous inquiries into Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital, chaired by Donna Ockenden, which found that failures in care had contributed to the avoidable deaths of 200 babies.
Ms Ockenden is also leading a non-statutory inquiry into maternity failures in Nottingham, which is investigating around 2,500 cases of alleged harm.
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