Over 500 Mothers, Babies Harmed, Died in UK Maternity Scandal

More than 500 mothers and babies suffered potentially avoidable harm or died due to poor care at a UK hospital trust, according to a damning report published Wednesday — the largest maternity inquiry in NHS history.

The independent probe into two units run by Nottingham University Hospitals Trust found at least 156 cases involved the death of babies, and six mothers also died. In total, over 2,500 families were involved in cases spanning 13 years from 2012 to 2025.

Of the babies who died, 94 were stillborn and 62 died shortly after birth from conditions including oxygen starvation and hospital-acquired infections, the report said.

The inquiry follows a string of maternity scandals at other English hospital trusts, including East Kent, Morecambe Bay, and Shrewsbury and Telford.

Among those affected were Sarah and Jack Hawkins, both senior clinicians at the trust at the time their daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016. “I just can’t compute … how they did this to us and how they did this to all these families,” said Sarah Hawkins, a physiotherapist.

“Our concerns were dismissed and not acted upon. We weren’t told the truth about what happened, even after death,” added Jack Hawkins, a former doctor at the trust. He called the report’s release the end of a “relentless and at times almost unbearable 10-year campaign” to learn the truth.

In another case, parents Gary Andrews and his partner were wrongly told in 2019 to terminate a healthy pregnancy. Their daughter Wynter died shortly after birth. Andrews said a clinician told him that “if we listened to every mother’s concerns, we’d be overrun.” 

“I think now I can respond to that and say if you’d listened to every mother’s concerns, there would be hundreds of mothers, babies, still alive,” he said.

In parliament, Health Minister James Murray described the findings as “chilling” and said regulators had been more concerned about “protecting clinicians” than providing accountability.

He said he had been “appalled by the neglect, incompetence, racism, discrimination, contempt and harassment that so many suffered” and pledged an action plan by the end of the year.

The report, led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden, is the latest to expose a crisis in England’s maternity care. Similar investigations have previously found systemic failures at other NHS trusts.

Nottingham University Hospitals Trust said it accepted the findings and apologized to families.