The publication timeline at a glance
- Inquiry established: May 2024, by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, chaired by Lady Justice Thirlwall. Initial public expectation was for the report by or during March 2025.
- First slip — to Autumn 2025: Lady Justice Thirlwall indicated an intention to publish in Autumn / November 2025. Attributed to the volume of evidence and the structure of the hearings (which extended longer than initially scoped).
- Second slip — to early 2026: By 22 May 2025 the publication date was pushed back to “early 2026” (ITV News Granada). The Nursing Times reported the delay the following day. The Inquiry attributed the slip to the complexity of the institutional evidence and the time required for representations from core participants.
- Third slip — to after Easter 2026: By November 2025 the Inquiry confirmed the report was scheduled for publication after Easter 2026. This remained the position into Q1-2026.
- 27 February 2026 — “very well advanced” update: The Inquiry’s press office described drafting as “very well advanced” but did not commit to a specific date.
- 9 April 2026 — further-delays reporting: Neil Wilby Media reported, on the basis of direct correspondence with the Inquiry press office of 8 April 2026, that the post-Easter date would slip again and that “a further update on publication timing” was expected later that month.
- 13 May 2026 — not before parliamentary summer recess: The Inquiry formally confirms publication will not occur until at least after Parliament’s summer recess, with the practical effect that publication is now expected no earlier than September 2026. This is the third successive delay since the “early 2026” commitment.
What has been attributed to each delay
The Inquiry has not, in its public-facing communications, attributed delays to any single structural cause. The recurring themes in its updates have been: the scale of the documentary evidence, the time required for core-participant representations (i.e. the submissions families, regulators, and individuals named in the report make in response to draft findings under the Maxwellisation process), and the care required to ensure the report is procedurally sound. The Inquiry has consistently avoided binding itself to a new specific publication date when each slip has been announced.
Independent observers have noted that Maxwellisation is an inherently variable process: when a draft report makes potentially adverse findings about identifiable individuals or organisations, those parties must be given the opportunity to respond before publication. The number of core participants in Thirlwall, and the breadth of the institutional critique anticipated, make the Maxwellisation phase intrinsically time-consuming. This does not in itself explain the magnitude of the cumulative delay, but it is a known structural reason why precise publication forecasts are difficult.
Knock-on: the inquests relisted into 2027
The most immediate practical consequence of the 13 May 2026 delay is on the six-baby inquests. On the same day, the HM Coroner relisted those inquests — full hearings originally scheduled for September 2026 will now provisionally begin on 10 May 2027, with the matter to be reviewed in November 2026. The coroner’s reasoning was explicit: the Thirlwall findings need to be available and fully considered before the inquests can proceed appropriately. See our inquests-delayed-to-2027 analysis for the procedural detail and what the relisting means for the families involved.
Does this affect the CCRC review?
The Criminal Cases Review Commission process is institutionally and legally separate from the Thirlwall Inquiry. Dame Vera Baird KC confirmed in February 2026 that the application was under active review, and CCRC decision-making does not depend on the inquiry reporting. In that strict sense, the Thirlwall delays do not delay the CCRC.
The indirect effects are more nuanced. Public-facing momentum around the case has, since the February 2025 Shoo Lee Panel, tended to be paced by formal-process milestones — panel reports, CPS announcements, Netflix releases, expected inquiry findings. Each Thirlwall delay removes one of those milestones from the 2026 calendar and shifts public attention elsewhere. Whether that helps or hurts the CCRC process is a separate question; historically, sustained public attention has been one (but not the only) factor associated with successful CCRC referrals in comparable cases.
What now
The Inquiry’s 13 May 2026 communication does not commit to a specific date later in 2026. The practical earliest window is September 2026 (after Parliament’s summer recess); the realistic window, given the pattern of slips, is later in autumn 2026. We will update this page when the Inquiry next publishes a confirmed date.