Just 12 days after announcing an independent but non-statutory inquiry into the events at the Countess of Chester Hospital, Steve Barclay reported last week that it would in fact be given statutory status, resulting in additional legal powers.
The health secretary said that the change of heart was made “after listening to the views of the families of the victims”. It is not uncommon for inquiries set up as non-statutory to be converted to statutory (the Post Office-Horizon saga being a recent example), but this shift in the Letby case represents a dramatic turnaround for an inquiry that has not yet been formally launched.
Questions remain over what the additional powers will be and whether they will make a positive difference in the inquiry’s mission