Families call for Nottingham maternity review chair rejection

Families have called for a newly-appointed leader of a review into a city's failing maternity services to decline the offer of chair.

The Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust review opened last year but had faced heavy criticism.

Families involved had called for Donna Ockenden, who led an inquiry into failings in Shropshire, to take over.

They now feel "let down, confused, and further traumatised" after NHS trust chair Julie Dent was appointed.

The review was launched following dozens of baby deaths and on Friday Ms Dent was announced as its new chairwoman.

A joint statement released on Monday from about 100 families affected said: "This has caused a great deal of distress, and has left families feeling severely let down, confused, and further traumatised.

"Families were not consulted prior to any decisions being made about the 'urgent changes to how the review is being delivered' which again demonstrates a lack of willingness to properly engage with the families affected, and is at odds with what is needed from a truly independent review."

The families added: "We are heartened to have support on Twitter supporting our serious misgivings regarding the appointment process and choice of chair, Julie Dent.

"We welcome the offer by the Secretary of State to meet with him and look forward to discussing issues around poor maternity care in Nottinghamshire and the need for a truly independent review that can produce the real and impactful intervention that is required if families are to be safeguarded.

"We would urge Julie Dent to strongly consider her appointment. Families request she declines the offer of chair."

They added they remained confident the only way for evidenced improvement was by appointing Donna Ockenden.

By Michael Buchanan, social affairs correspondent

This argument was entirely avoidable. When the Nottingham families went public with their well-argued criticism of the review earlier this month, all NHS England had to do was arrange a meeting with them to discuss the best way forward and jointly come up with a plan.

Instead, there was no contact whatsoever, and then out of the blue, last Friday, the announcement of a new chair.

NHS England was unable to give me a satisfactory explanation though it's understood that Julie Dent's ready availability was a consideration.

Once more, grieving families must fight a system that professes to support them but too often tries to ride roughshod over them.

Maternity units run by the trust - which oversees care at Nottingham City Hospital and the Queen's Medical Centre - have been rated as inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) since 2020.

It recently emerged the number of families taking part in the review - which was commissioned by the local clinical commissioning group (CCG) and NHS England, and NHS Improvement - had increased from 84 to 461.

A spokesperson for NHS England and NHS Improvement said: "No one should have to go through what these families in Nottingham have suffered and it is absolutely right that they have their experiences of poor care responded to and learned from.

"The next steps of the review including engagement with families will be set out shortly."

In a tweet on Friday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: "The Nottingham hospitals maternity review must urgently bring about real change & prevent more families from suffering.

"I'm confident the appointment of Julie Dent, with her extensive experience, will deliver a review that helps address these tragic failures."

A spokesperson for Nottingham University Hospitals said: "We will continue to engage fully with the independent review and remain committed to improving local maternity services using feedback from the review as well as local families and NHS partners."

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