Skip to content

April 2026: Thirlwall Inquiry final report due after Easter · CCRC still reviewing 31+ independent expert reports · Shoo Lee Panel (Feb 2025): no medical evidence of deliberate harm.

Lucy Letby Facts
Inquiry witness evidence — summary + excerpts
·Sir Duncan Nichol; Thirlwall Inquiry

Sir Duncan Nichol — witness evidence summary (Thirlwall Inquiry)

Sir Duncan Nichol was Chair of the Trust Board from 2013 to 2018. His Thirlwall Inquiry evidence addresses governance: what non-executive directors knew, how board minutes recorded the neonatal concerns, and what challenge (or lack of challenge) the board offered the executive team.

Last updated
17 min read

Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0

Original source: thirlwall.inquiry.gov.uk

Mirrored on this site:

Crown Copyright. Mirrored under the Open Government Licence v3.0 with attribution.

Context

Sir Duncan Nichol was Chair of the Trust Board from 2013 to 2018. His Thirlwall Inquiry evidence addresses governance: what non-executive directors knew, how board minutes recorded (or did not record) the neonatal concerns, and what challenge the board offered the executive team.

Key passages

Sir Duncan Nichol

The board was briefed by the Chief Executive and the Medical Director on the matter in general terms. In hindsight, I would say we should have pressed for more granular information than we did.
Thirlwall Inquiry witness evidence, Autumn 2024

Counsel to the Inquiry

Sir Duncan, the board minutes record no challenge by non-executive directors of the executive team’s handling of this matter across 2015 and 2016. Is that a fair summary?
Thirlwall Inquiry — exchange on board minutes

Sir Duncan Nichol

That is a fair summary of what is recorded.
Thirlwall Inquiry

What to read alongside this

See our profile of Sir Duncan Nichol and the evidence of Tony Chambers and Ian Harvey on the executive reports to the board.

Related on this site

Attribution and licence

Contains public-sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Original source: thirlwall.inquiry.gov.uk . Mirrored on this site on 2026-04-21.