NHS England previously commissioned the Independent Maternity Review of the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, in respect of significant concerns raised regarding the quality and safety of maternity. The investigation, which is led by Donna Ockenden, began on 1 September 2022 and the final report from this is due to be published in September 2025.  It is the largest inquiry of its kind in NHS history and covers maternity care provided at the Nottingham City Hospital and Queen’s Medical Centre.  

Donna Ockenden previously led the investigation into the issues with maternity services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, finding that it was an ‘NHS maternity service that failed. It failed to investigate, failed to learn and failed to improve, and therefore often failed to safeguard mothers and their babies at one of the most important times in their lives’. 

Sadly, it appears likely that the Nottingham Trust review is going to raise similar issues, with the Trust having been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission and over £101 million in compensation having already been paid out by the NHS in respect of maternity failings of the Trust between 2006 and 2023, relating to 134 cases. Of these cases, 22 were concerning cerebral palsy.  

The hope would be that the investigation commencing would have focussed the Trust on making improvements; however, this does not appear to have been the case. There was an unannounced CQC investigation of the maternity services in June 2024, which was triggered by concerns about insufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, and experienced midwifery staff to meet the care and treatment needs of patients. The inspection found several critical areas which required improvement and Donna Ockenden expressed his disappointment that improvements had ‘stalled’. 

In the same way that the Ockenden Review into Shrewsbury and Telford was triggered by calls for action from bereaved parents, the review into the Nottingham Trust was prompted by parents who suffered the heartbreaking loss of a child which was avoidable. One of the first families to raise concerns about the Trust was Jack and Sarah Hawkins, who lost their daughter, Harriet. They campaigned tirelessly in challenging the hospital review which found no obvious fault in the care received and pushed for an external review which found 13 failings in the care and that Harriet’s death was ‘almost certainly preventable’. 

The scope of the investigation has been significantly expanded and is reviewing cases of approximately 2,000 families who have received maternity care from the Trust. As part of the investigation, it will consider cases from 1 April 2012 to May 2025 in which mothers and/or their babies have suffered severe harm or death, including: 

• Stillbirths from 24 weeks gestation; 

• Neonatal deaths from 24 weeks gestation that occur up to 28 days of life; 

• Babies diagnosed with hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (grade 2 or 3) and other significant brain injury;  

• Maternal death up to 42 days post-partum;  

• Severe maternal harm including all unexpected admissions to ITU requiring ventilation, major obstetric haemorrhage, peripartum hysterectomy and other major surgical procedures arising from childbirth, cases of eclampsia and clinically significant cases of pulmonary embolus. 

If you have received care from the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and feel that you have been let down, please contact our experienced medical negligence team to discuss how we can help.