The startling safety data from two new reviews on maternity services might be expected to trigger immediate measures for improvement. However, the likelihood is that nothing will change quickly. The reasons for this dispiriting conclusion include the simple fact that cultural change, which seems to be at the heart of the maternity services crisis, is hard to achieve in a hurry. Another is that many other reviews and investigations in the same clinical area have failed to stop the crisis. A question for the UK’s new health secretary is: what will be different this time around?The Ockenden review is an independent inquiry into NHS maternity services in Nottingham (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-100083).1 It covers maternity care from 2012 to 2025 and involves nearly 2500 families, making it the biggest ever NHS maternity review. Five hundred mothers and babies experienced serious or avoidable harm. The deaths of 156 children and six mothers might have…
