NUH maternity review: Hundreds of families get in touch with Donna Ockenden and her team
The review opened up on September 1st.
At least 350 families have contacted the senior midwife, in charge of a review into Nottingham's two maternity units.
Donna Ockenden and her team opened the inquiry on 1st of September.
She's looking into how dozens babies died or were injured at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) two sites.
She's also investigating cases where mums have died or been left with lifelong physical and mental trauma.
The review team are still asking families to come forward.
Donna tells us:
"Families can have as little, or as much involvement in the review as they want.
"It may well be that they say to us, I don't feel able to talk to you yet. But, here is consent for you to access my records from the Trust.
"Reliving those terrible times, those difficulties, those traumatic experiences will be so hard.
"We will make sure that there is support in place.
"Psychological support, listening support, for families who want to come and be a part of our review."
"This will save babies lives"
Sarah and Jack Hawkins' daughter Harriet was still born at the Queens medical centre back in 2016, after Sarah spent six days in labour.
The couple were initially told Harriet died of an infection, but an investigation later found is down to mismanaged labour.
It also identified 13 significant failings by the Trust.
Sarah tells us:
"There will be parents at home with healthy babies who did have failures and we would really emphasise for them to come forwards.
"It might not seem significant to them, but if there's one thing that they think 'that shouldn't have happened', please come forwards because all those little things will add up and this will save babies lives"
The review is expected to take around 18 months, and will consider cases from 1 April 2012.
In exceptional circumstances, cases from 1st April 2006 will be considered.
Families who fall into one or more of the following categories are being encouraged to get in touch:
- Term and intrapartum stillbirths.
- Neonatal deaths from 24 weeks gestation that occur up to 28 days of life; the review team will also consider neonatal serious incident reports and neonatal never events.
- Babies diagnosed with Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (Grade 2 & 3) and other significant hypoxic injury.
- Maternal death up to 42 days post-partum.
- Severe maternal harm to include cases such as all unexpected admission to ITU requiring ventilation, major obstetric hemorrhage e.g. cases where blood loss exceeds 3.5L, peri-partum hysterectomy, and other major surgical procedures arising from the maternity episode, cases of eclampsia and clinically significant cases of pulmonary embolus requiring further treatment.
Michelle Rhodes, Chief Nurse at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said:
“We are deeply sorry for the unimaginable distress that has been caused due to failings in our maternity services.
"We know that an apology will never be enough and we owe it to those who have been failed, those we’re caring for today and to our staff to deliver a better maternity service for our communities.
We welcome Donna Ockenden and her team to Nottingham and will work with them to achieve this.”
Families seeking to contact the inquiry team can email nottsreview@donnaockenden.com