From 6m agoMore than 500 mothers and babies died or were harmed at ‘toxic’ Nottingham NHS trust, report findsDenis CampbellMore than 500 mothers and babies came to harm or died as a result of inadequate care in Nottingham, an inquiry into the NHS’s biggest ever maternity scandal has revealed.A total of 444 women and 76 newborn babies suffered “potentially avoidable” outcomes because they received substandard treatment over 13 years from Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust (NUH), a damning report led by the childbirth expert Donna Ockenden has found.The 401-page document paints a stark and forensic picture of maternity care at its two hospitals – Queen’s medical centre and Nottingham city hospital – where “multiple” women experienced dangerously poor and sometimes “cruel” care, understaffing was routine, lessons from patient safety incidents were not learned and bullying by “intimidating cliques” of staff was rife.Ockenden and her team of maternity experts who undertook the three-year inquiry investigated the deaths of 27 mothers between 2006 and 2024 and “identified failures in care that may have or substantially impacted on the outcome in six deaths”.Staff’s failure to listen to women and to act promptly on concerns they raised was one of the “common failures” involved in maternal deaths, they found, as well as delays in women having scans.The review was ordered in 2023 after families warned that maternity care at NUH care was unsafe. It also examined cases in which babies died as a result of being starved of oxygen during birth or picking up a hospital-acquired infection, or because midwives and doctors did not manage the mother’s labour properly or provided poor postnatal care.Read more:Key events6m agoMore than 500 mothers and babies died or were harmed at ‘toxic’ Nottingham NHS trust, report finds55m agoOpening summaryThe press conference on the Ockenden inquiry has begun, you can watch live here:Former midwife Donna Ockendon delivers speech following maternity care review findings - watch livePaula Sussex, the parliamentary and health service ombudsman, said the report “adds to an overwhelming body of evidence that maternity services are failing women and families in ways that are repeated and preventable”.In remarks reported by the Press Association earlier this morning, she said: