NHS maternity staff told by bosses 'don't be too kind' to pregnant women as they wanted them to 'FOH'

By ANDY DOLAN, GENERAL REPORTER Published: 15:51, 1 June 2026 | Updated: 15:55, 1 June 2026 A MIDWIFE at an NHS trust subject to Britain’s biggest ever maternity scandal review urged colleagues ‘don’t be too kind’ to patients. Dozens of babies died or suffered serious injury at hospitals run by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), where an inquiry which is due to report back this month has been examining the care provided to 2,500 families between 2012 and 2025. The BBC’s Panorama spoke to ten midwives who worked at the trust and examined previously unreported documents for an episode on NUH’s maternity failures to be broadcast tonight. The documents included a 2018 resignation letter from a senior midwife which detailed how another member of staff advised colleagues to get pregnant women, who had arrived at hospital worried they were going into labour, to go home with the advice: ‘Don’t be too kind, she’ll keep coming back’. The same letter raising concerns about attitudes in the unit also described how the letters 'FOH' would be written on a whiteboard next to names of heavily pregnant women staff wanted to leave the maternity unit. The ‘F’ stood for a swear word while the O and H together meant ‘off home’. The inquiry by independent midwife Donna Ockenden has been investigating stillbirths, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths, and injured babies and mothers at NUH, which runs City Hospital and Queen’s Medical Centre. It is due to publish its findings on 24 June. Senior midwife Donna Ockenden began the review after conducting a similar probe into maternity care in Shropshire Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust thought 'they were some kind of superior NHS trust compared to others,’ Ms Ockenden told Panorama. Sarah Hawkins, whose daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016 after staff ignored her concerns, said the FOH whiteboard remarks were ‘upsetting to hear’. ‘Who writes that in a caring profession?’ she told the BBC. Common themes in the poor outcomes experienced in Nottingham have been a determination to keep women at home for as long as possible before giving birth and a lack of training and equipment. One midwife told Panorama that as neonatal deaths became ‘increasingly common’ staff became ‘desensitised’ to what was happening. Ms Ockenden has also learned of ‘countless’ examples of racist behaviour, including staff mimicking accents. ‘Nottingham thought that there was a Nottingham way, that they were some kind of superior NHS trust compared to others,’ she told Panorama. Last June, Nottinghamshire Police announced it had commenced an investigation into corporate manslaughter at NUH. Anthony May, NUH chief executive since 2022, accepted the trust had ‘failed’ patients and their families and let down staff, and acknowledged that the Ockenden review was ‘helping us improve’. In a statement issued ahead of the Panorama broadcast, he added: ‘We are learning from our mistakes, we are improving the safety of our care, we are listening to our mothers, and we are talking with our staff. I can see improvements, and I do believe that we now have safer, kinder and better-led maternity services. ‘ A recent report from the regulator, the Care Quality Commission, improved the trust’s standing from ‘inadequate’ to ‘requires improvement’.  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. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.