Grieving families hope for answers as the largest maternity review in the history of NHS is released today detailing widespread failures which led to baby deaths

By CLAIRE DUFFIN, SENIOR REPORTER Published: 00:01, 24 June 2026 | Updated: 00:06, 24 June 2026 Familie of babies who died or were left seriously injured at an NHS trust have told how they finally hope to get answers when a report into Britain's largest maternity scandal is published today. The long-awaited review into failings at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust is expected to reveal shocking examples of poor care during an 'institutional cover-up' of baby deaths. Senior leaders hid staff blunders, downgraded nurse failings and dismissed mothers' concerns over a decade to avoid scrutiny, expert midwife Donna Ockenden will say. Women were also subjected to cruel and racist treatment. The NHS is bracing itself for the report, which is 350 pages long, and will likely prompt calls for urgent major changes to maternity care. Ms Ockenden, whose team examined more than 2,500 cases, will conclude that poor care led to hundreds of avoidable mother and baby deaths, stillbirths and cases of severe brain damage in children between 2012 and 2025. While the expert midwife spoke to more than 800 staff at the trust, it is understood that half of the 60 former senior executives and directors she approached refused to answer questions about their role in the scandal. In total 150 doctors and midwives are being assessed over complaints about their fitness to practise and could be permanently struck off. The NHS is bracing itself for the report, by expert midwife Donna Ockenden which is 350 pages long, and will likely prompt calls for urgent major changes to maternity care Jack and Sarah Hawkins, whose daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016, have led calls for the review. They were eventually awarded £2.8 million over the failures Nottinghamshire Police has also launched a corporate manslaughter case into maternity failings at NUH, which runs City Hospital and Queen's Medical Centre (pictured) The inquiry has been driven by families seeking answers as to why their healthy babies died during labour or shortly after birth or were left with disabilities and follows a decade-long campaign for justice and change. Among them is Jack and Sarah Hawkins, whose daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016. The couple, who both worked at the trust in senior roles at the time, were told her death was due to an infection and an internal hospital review concluded there were no errors in her care. But the couple refused to accept what they were told and uncovered harrowing details of how the hospital made a series of medical errors. NUH staff also recorded a 2017 phone call made by Mr Hawkins without his consent and played it at a meeting of senior midwives months later, where they allegedly mocked him. They later learnt their daughter's body was allowed to decompose for ten months in the mortuary at the hospital. Mr and Mrs Hawkins were eventually awarded £2.8 million over the failures. Mr Hawkins, 57, a former hospital consultant, said: 'Our biggest thing is, how has this happened in plain sight of the state, the mandarins in the Department of Health and Social Care, the board of NHS England? 'How on earth have we allowed it that there are 1,000 avoidable baby deaths in this country every year, and in a particular place...how have we got here?' Mrs Hawkins, 43, said: 'I think there needs to be individual sanctions, because at the minute – and in Nottingham – you can harm or kill babies and nothing happens. There is no accountability.' Sarah and Gary Andrews' daughter Wynter died 23 minutes after being born in 2019. NUH was fined £800,000 in 2023 after admitting failings in Wynter's care in a criminal prosecution brought by the regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Mrs Andrews, 41, said: 'I think for us the Ockenden report is just the start of the journey for Nottingham and nationally. 'We need to make sure that history isn't repeated again. We hope it will make some good change, and all we've ever wanted from the beginning is that no other families have to endure what we have.' Mr Andrews, 38, said: 'The report being published today needs to serve as a wake-up call to the NHS locally and nationally, that what's gone on before cannot be allowed to continue.' Former teacher Mel Ibrahim, 53, delivered her daughter Amaya at around 24 weeks alone in a bathroom at Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham in April 2016. She has also fed into the review. Weighing 1lb 10oz at birth, Amaya spent months on a neonatal ward after suffering a bleed on her brain, contracting sepsis and being ventilated for chronic lung disease. Now aged 10, Amaya has cerebral palsy, autism and is profoundly deaf, requiring constant supervision. Ms Ibrahim said she has 'nagging questions' about the care she and Amaya received before and after her birth. Laura Flanagan, 45, said it felt like a 'nightmare' when her son Archie became cold, looked grey and was 'grunting with every breath' after he was born at QMC in January 2022. Archie was moved to the neonatal intensive care unit at 13 hours old and was put on a ventilator 31 hours after he was born. Ms Flanagan, who has seven children and has also contributed to the Ockenden inquiry, said she was 'constantly ignored, put down, made to feel like an inconvenience' by hospital staff after Archie's birth. The government-ordered review of NUH's maternity services led by Ms Ockenden is expected to detail how failures at every level contributed to families suffering harm. Last year Ockenden had to prolong her review after 256 additional neonatal deaths that had not been shared with her by the trust were flagged by the coroner. Nottinghamshire Police also launched a corporate manslaughter case last year as part of a wider criminal investigation into maternity failings at NUH, which runs City Hospital and Queen's Medical Centre. Called operation Perth it is examining hundreds of serious injuries and deaths in the service. On Monday, the force said two men had been arrested 'in connection with operating practices in the mortuary service' provided by the trust. The men, aged 55 and 59, were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. Regulators the General Medical Council (GMC) and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) are investigating allegations against individual staff from NUH. The NMC said it was looking at 96 fitness to practise cases relating to maternity care at NUH. The GMC, which regulates doctors, was looking at 62 cases. Last February, NUH was ordered to pay £1.66 million after pleading guilty to six charges brought by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) of failing to provide safe care and treatment to three mothers and their babies. It comes as more than a dozen other maternity units around the country are facing their own separate investigations into standards of care. More than two thirds of units have been told by the CQC that they must improve their safety. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. 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