The largest maternity review in the history of the NHS is being published today, in a moment many affected families have waited years for. The review is expected to detail widespread failings in maternity care that led to the deaths of babies and to avoidable harm, laying bare what went wrong over a long period at one of England's hospital trusts.
The scale of the review is unprecedented for the health service. About 2,500 families and more than 800 staff members contributed to it, an enormous body of testimony and evidence. The families who took part have described what happened as the largest maternity scandal in the history of the NHS.
The review focuses on a single trust. It examined maternity services at the Nottingham University Hospitals Trust and was led by the senior midwife Donna Ockenden, who has become a prominent figure in scrutinising failings in maternity care across the country and was asked to lead this independent inquiry.
Its scope reaches into the most painful outcomes of childbirth. Over a period of nearly four years, the inquiry investigated stillbirths, neonatal deaths, babies left injured, and the deaths of mothers, building a detailed picture of how care was delivered and where it broke down at the trust.
For the families involved, the report carries a deeply personal weight. For many of them, today is the moment they may finally learn whether their own case could have turned out differently had they received different maternity care, a question that has hung over them in the years since they first raised concerns.
Ahead of publication, the trust itself acknowledged serious shortcomings. Its chief executive, Anthony May, described the report as a watershed moment and said it was no secret that staff had struggled to provide the service. He admitted that mistakes had been made and that the trust had failed women and families going back many years.
The publication is set to intensify scrutiny of maternity safety in the NHS more broadly. As a systemic review into how an entire service failed over time, its findings are likely to fuel renewed pressure for accountability and change, both at the trust at the centre of the inquiry and across maternity care nationally.