{"id":651843,"date":"2026-06-22T08:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T08:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/651843\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T08:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T08:09:07","slug":"report-on-nottingham-nhs-maternity-scandal-to-reveal-horrendous-failings-nhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/651843\/","title":{"rendered":"Report on Nottingham NHS maternity scandal to reveal \u2018horrendous\u2019 failings | NHS"},"content":{"rendered":"

The report of the inquiry into the biggest maternity scandal in NHS history will outline \u201chorrendous\u201d failings in the care provided to women in Nottingham<\/a>, the Guardian can reveal.<\/p>\n

A catalogue of appalling behaviour over many years by staff at the city\u2019s two hospitals \u2013 Queen\u2019s Medical Centre and Nottingham City hospital \u2013 included racism towards mothers, it will say.<\/p>\n

The NHS is bracing itself for the publication on Wednesday of a report by Donna Ockenden<\/a> on 2,500 cases involving babies and mothers dying or being injured, and babies being stillborn, while under the care of Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust between 1 April 2012 and 31 May 2025.<\/p>\n

A senior source with knowledge of Ockenden\u2019s conclusions said: \u201cThe findings in the Nottingham report will be very bad. It\u2019s going to be horrendous. There will be some pretty challenging stuff in the report.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donna Ockenden has led the review into the Nottingham maternity scandal. Photograph: Peter Flude\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The document will stretch to more than 350 pages. Ockenden, a senior midwife and expert in maternity care failings, began her inquiry into Nottingham more than four years ago, in May 2022. About 2,505 families \u2013 more than in any previous maternity scandal \u2013 and approximately 850 staff and ex-staff of the NHS<\/a> trust have given evidence to it.<\/p>\n

Ockenden was appointed after families demanded a full-scale inquiry into what they said was the trust\u2019s poor and dangerous treatment of women during their pregnancy, and especially when giving birth.<\/p>\n

Nottinghamshire police are still considering whether<\/a> to charge the trust with corporate manslaughter. The force\u2019s Operation Perth<\/a> has been examining the care that at least 200 families received.<\/p>\n

In anticipation of Ockenden\u2019s report, the Nottingham Maternity Families Group urged Keir Starmer to order a statutory public inquiry into maternity care across England<\/a> as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have every confidence that Donna Ockenden and her team have left no stone unturned in uncovering the unsafe practices, cultural failures and inadequate leadership that have contributed to avoidable maternal and baby deaths, stillbirths and life-changing brain injuries over many years,\u201d the group said in a statement to the Guardian.<\/p>\n

It said Ockenden\u2019s recommendations must be \u201cimplemented in full. Anything less would be a betrayal of the families whose suffering has made this review necessary. We know that the problems are not unique to Nottingham and the time has come for there to be a statutory public inquiry into maternity and neonatal services across England.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates those professions, is investigating 96 midwives and nurses at the trust for alleged misconduct. Eighty of those cases are still being assessed and 15 are under full investigation.<\/p>\n

One midwife is the subject of an interim order and has been suspended from working while fitness to practise proceedings are under way, the NMC said.<\/p>\n

James Murray, the health secretary, has vowed to push through major changes to maternity care and not let Ockenden\u2019s recommendations \u2013 or those from Valerie Amos\u2019s government-commissioned inquiry<\/a> into maternity care across England, which is due to report next week \u2013 \u201csit on a shelf\u201d, as many of those produced by previous childbirth care investigations have done. He met some of the affected families in Nottingham last Thursday.<\/p>\n

James Murray met with families affected by the scandal last week. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz\/Future Publishing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cSince becoming health secretary, I\u2019ve spent time with families who have suffered shocking failures in maternity care to hear about their experiences and to discuss with them what they want to see happen,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n

Noting the importance of Lady Amos\u2019s national investigation, he said: \u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve heard very clearly from families is that recommendations must not sit on a shelf \u2013 as we\u2019ve seen so many times before \u2013 and must instead be turned into a tangible plan of action. My focus as secretary of state is to make sure that change happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government is considering<\/a> setting up a full public inquiry into maternity care because so much of it is \u201ctruly shocking\u201d, its adviser on the subject disclosed last week.<\/p>\n

The Labour MP Michelle Welsh, who was appointed<\/a> as the government\u2019s maternity adviser last month, told a Medical Journalists Association (MJA) conference that she was \u201cin conversations\u201d with the Department of Health and Social Care about a public inquiry.<\/p>\n

Such an inquiry would bridge the gap faced by Ockenden\u2019s inquiry in that it could not compel witnesses to attend and give evidence, Welsh said. She said it had been hampered by the fact that those \u201cin very, very senior positions\u201d in the NHS at the time of the scandal \u201ccan personally decide that they are not going to engage in it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Welsh, the MP for Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire since 2024, told the Politics Home website<\/a> about her traumatic experience<\/a> when she had her son Billy, who is now six, at Nottingham City hospital.<\/p>\n

She told the MJA event: \u201cI was even approached by a senior obstetrician at the [Nottingham] trust who arranged a meeting at my office under a different name not to discuss solutions, not to listen to families, but to persuade me there wasn\u2019t a problem, to convince me that maternity services at Nottingham university hospitals trust were fine, that what families were saying wasn\u2019t true, and the midwives stepping forward to not believe them, yet every week more families came forward, more midwives came forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ockenden believes<\/a> there is \u201can improving culture in maternity services in Nottingham in 2026 but there remains work to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

Anthony May, the trust\u2019s chief executive, who took over in 2022, after the scandal emerged, has pointed to improvements including better recruitment and retention of maternity staff. But improvement remained a \u201cwork in progress\u201d, he said last week. He has apologised to families who were harmed by the trust\u2019s shortcomings.<\/p>\n

In its most recent report<\/a> in March, based on its inspection in May 2025, the CQC found that maternity services at both of the trust\u2019s hospitals had improved but it continued to rate them as \u201crequires improvement\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The report of the inquiry into the biggest maternity scandal in NHS history will outline \u201chorrendous\u201d failings in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-651843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}