Hundreds more families added to Nottingham maternity review
An independent review launched after hundreds of baby deaths and injuries across Nottingham, which was already the biggest in NHS history, has been expanded to include 300 more families.
It comes after years of campaigning by families affected by the city's maternity scandal. Expert midwife Donna Ockenden and dozens of healthcare professionals have spent thousands of hours speaking to families and reviewing records since the review was called in 2022. It was originally due to be finished in September 2025.
Today (Saturday, February 1), Ms Ockenden issued an update after the 300 new families were included, which will delay the publication of the report into the review to June 2026. Ms Ockenden said: "As of today, 2,032 families have joined the review.
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"We have been working with Anthony May, chief executive of Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, and his colleagues to ensure that all appropriate cases are included in the independent review. This work has identified some discrepancies. These discrepancies are cases that should have been provided to the review, but were not."
The discrepancies relate to the following categories:
Babies who have died
Babies with brain injury
Mothers who have died
Ms Ockenden added: "We would like to stress that this has arisen from a genuine misunderstanding. As a matter of urgency, these cases will be sent to the review team. This means they will be reviewed by our team, we can offer support to these families and the trust will learn from the experiences of these cases.
"As a result, the number of families that are to be included in the review will significantly increase. This is expected to be up to 300 new families. We expect that the numbers of families in the review (when the review closes to new cases at the end of May 2025) to be about 2,500 families."
She said families will remember that the review team said it would do its "very best" to publish the report at the end of September but added that there were approximately 1,700 families in the review at the time. "Even without the new families joining the review the number of families has increased as of today to 2,032," she continued.
"With the new families joining the review we are letting you know we will have to delay publication of the report until June 2026, with family feedback to follow after publication. This will give the review team the opportunity to provide support to all families and allow for all cases to be reviewed to the highest professional standards that all of us expect."
The review began in September 2022 as Ms Ockended urged families to get in touch. By the summer of 2023, around 600 families had consented to be included in the review, well below the total number who had been contacted.
The low uptake and pressure from families prompted a change in approach by NHS England on July 9, switching from opt-in to opt-out. This resulted in letters being sent to more than 1,000 families in September, informing them they would be a part of the review unless they had an objection. The change meant the review officially became the largest in NHS history.
On September 7, Nottinghamshire Police announced it would be launching a criminal investigation into the trust's maternity services. The force said it would look at cases that are "of potentially significant concern".
The investigation, named Operation Perth, is now understood to be well under way after a wave of recruitment early last year. It is separate to the independent review but information is being shared between the two.
Then, in May 2024, the scope of the review was expanded to include the care of women during their pregnancy, Ms Ockenden announced. She urged more families to get in touch after concerning reports about antenatal care.
Anthony May, chief executive of Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, has now commented following the extension of the publication deadline. He said: “It is important that we use the review to maximise learning and that all affected women and families are included.
“I support fully the decision to include new families, and I support the decision to extend the timetable. Since the start of the review in September 2022, we have worked closely with Donna Ockenden and her team, and this will continue through to the report’s publication and beyond.
“While the review is ongoing, we will continue to do everything we can to improve our maternity services further. It is clear that, thanks to a huge amount of work from colleagues in the service, we have achieved sustainable and evidenced improvements in our maternity services.
“Women, families and the communities we serve can be assured that our maternity services are better now than they were at the start of the review.”