Key events
More than 500 mothers and babies died or were harmed at ‘toxic’ Nottingham NHS trust, report finds
Denis Campbell
More than 500 mothers and babies came to harm or died as a result of inadequate care in Nottingham, an inquiry into the NHS’s biggest ever maternity scandal has revealed.
A total of 444 women and 76 newborn babies suffered “potentially avoidable” outcomes because they received substandard treatment over 13 years from Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust (NUH), a damning report led by the childbirth expert Donna Ockenden has found.
The 401-page document paints a stark and forensic picture of maternity care at its two hospitals – Queen’s medical centre and Nottingham city hospital – where “multiple” women experienced dangerously poor and sometimes “cruel” care, understaffing was routine, lessons from patient safety incidents were not learned and bullying by “intimidating cliques” of staff was rife.
Ockenden and her team of maternity experts who undertook the three-year inquiry investigated the deaths of 27 mothers between 2006 and 2024 and “identified failures in care that may have or substantially impacted on the outcome in six deaths”.
Staff’s failure to listen to women and to act promptly on concerns they raised was one of the “common failures” involved in maternal deaths, they found, as well as delays in women having scans.
The review was ordered in 2023 after families warned that maternity care at NUH care was unsafe. It also examined cases in which babies died as a result of being starved of oxygen during birth or picking up a hospital-acquired infection, or because midwives and doctors did not manage the mother’s labour properly or provided poor postnatal care.
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The press conference on the Ockenden inquiry has begun, you can watch live here:
Paula Sussex, the parliamentary and health service ombudsman, said the report “adds to an overwhelming body of evidence that maternity services are failing women and families in ways that are repeated and preventable”.
In remarks reported by the Press Association earlier this morning, she said:
For years, reviews have highlighted the same issues – failures in communication, not listening, delays in diagnosis, and poor postnatal care. Yet too often these warnings and any lessons have not translated into lasting improvement, resulting in repeated harm.
While many NHS staff work tirelessly to provide excellent care, every woman and baby deserves safe, compassionate care, every time. It is vital now that we focus on fixing the service. NHS leaders must ensure these findings lead to real, sustained action across all Trusts.
Listening to women and families is one of the most effective ways to prevent harm and improve care. We owe it to those affected not just to recognise these failures, but to ensure they lead to meaningful and lasting change.”
A photo from the newswire this morning of families arriving at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Nottingham for the Ockenden report press conference.
‘Truly horrific’: the stories of five people affected by the NHS maternity scandal
In this report by the Guardian’s social affairs correspondent, Jessica Murray, five families recount the devastating consequences of failures in maternity care at Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust.
Among them is Sarah Andrews, whose daughter, Wynter, died in 2019 at the Queen’s Medical Centre from hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy – a loss of oxygen flow to the brain – which could have been prevented had staff delivered her earlier. Sharing her story, she said:
I went into labour and I was having contractions, and for six days, I was basically told to stay at home. I didn’t feel like I had any other choice. And then in hospital, the care was just beset by failures.
I actually said to my husband I felt like I’d be better off dead than in the situation I was in … It was truly horrific. When they eventually called the emergency C-section and opened me up, the smell of infection filled the room and that’s when they realised that Wynter was stuck in my pelvis. All the warning signs of infection were there.
Me and Gary had to watch for 23 minutes while they failed to resuscitate her. We had staff come visit us in the bereavement suite and they said it was one of those things, that sometimes babies die. One said to us: ‘If we listen to every mother’s concerns, we’d be overrun.’ They’re telling us that they can’t see anything that’s gone wrong. And a year later, at the inquest, the coroner rules that it’s a clear and obvious case of neglect.”
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Speaking ahead of the publication of the report, Labour MP Michelle Welsh said it was “pure luck” that her own baby had survived birth.
“When it comes to luck, as to whether your baby survives or not, then that is a true indication of a system that is truly, truly failing,” the MP for Sherwood Forest and the government’s first maternity adviser told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
When asked whether there was a will within government to change things, she said:
I feel that there is a momentum. I do feel that there is a will.
I mean, I absolutely make sure that I am listened to. I haven’t got in within those doors to sit there quiet and just nod my head. I’m absolutely out there, at the forefront, being very, very loud and clear about the fact that we do need the funding.
But funding alone is not going to solve this crisis. There needs to be huge systematic change. The government has to be bold in the policies that it makes, because tinkering around the edges will not solve this crisis.
And some of these organisations involved are going to have to face these truths, and we are going to have to deal with this head on.”
Opening summary
The report of the largest maternity inquiry in the history of the NHS is due to be published today and is expected to outline widespread failings in the care provided to women in Nottingham.
As previously reported by the Guardian, the report will reveal a catalogue of appalling behaviour over many years by staff at the city’s two hospitals – Queen’s Medical Centre and Nottingham city hospital – including racism towards mothers.
The inquiry, led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden, investigated 2,500 cases of stillbirths, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths and babies or mothers who suffered brain damage and other injuries while under the care of Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust between 1 April 2012 and 31 May 2025.
A senior source with knowledge of Ockenden’s conclusions said: “The findings in the Nottingham report will be very bad. It’s going to be horrendous. There will be some pretty challenging stuff in the report.”
The inquiry began more than four years ago, in May 2022, following a decade-long campaign for justice and change by the families affected. More than 2,500 families and approximately 850 staff and ex-staff of the NHS trust have given evidence to it.
Nottinghamshire police is still considering whether to charge the trust with corporate manslaughter. On Monday, the police force said two men were arrested “in connection with operating practices in the mortuary service” provided by the trust. It is thought to be the first arrests as part of the force’s Operation Perth, which has been examining care provided to at least 200 families.
The Guardian’s health policy editor, Denis Campbell, and health and inequalities correspondent, Tobi Thomas, have more:
The report is expected to be published at 11.45am with Ockenden to give a press conference at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Nottingham. Follow along to get the latest updates.
