Nottingham maternity review published

24 Jun 2026

The Ockenden independent report into maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust has been published today. The biggest maternity inquiry of its kind, the report investigates the quality of care relating to newborn, infant and maternal harm at the Trust; and presents findings, conclusions and essential actions.

The report draws on findings from multiple HQIP-commissioned national clinical audits and outcome reviews, highlighting the importance of these programmes:

MBRRACE-UK (Maternal, Newborn and Infant Clinical Outcome Review)

Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (known as MBRRACE-UK) is mentioned several times, including:

“Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE-UK) highlighted that inadequate care during the latent phase of labour is a significant issue contributing to adverse outcomes.” (page 154)

“The MBRRACE-UK perinatal surveillance programme has provided comparison of perinatal and neonatal mortality rates across hospitals since 2013, using stabilised and adjusted rates that account for maternal age, socio-economic deprivation, baby’s sex and ethnicity, multiplicity and gestational age at birth.” (page 188) The 2026 report can be found here: Perinatal Mortality Surveillance report – HQIP

National Maternity and Perinatal Audit (NMPA)

The National Maternity and Perinatal Audit (NMPA) is utilised for data on maternal critical care:

“Research suggests that for every maternal death, 70–90 women experience severe morbidity, and approximately 2.4 per 1,000 births result in a critical care admission (The National Maternity and Perinatal Audit Maternity Admissions study into intensive care in England, Wales and Scotland 2019).” (page 180) This report can be found here: NMPA Intensive Care Report – HQIP

National Neonatal Audit Project (NNAP)

The National Neonatal Audit Project (NNAP) is also mentioned:

“NNAP collects data from all neonatal units in England, Scotland and Wales on agreed quality improvement measures and enables benchmarking against other units. All available NNAP data for the period 2012 to 2025 was reviewed.” (page 188)

The Review goes on to state that “All neonatal units must use national neonatal audit programme (NNAP) (RCPCH 2026) outcomes and GIRFT (NHSE 2026) reviews to focus quality improvement work and drive improvements in those areas identified as negative outliers with an emphasis on close to real time quality surveillance alongside the use of audit data” as part of its Immediate and Essential Actions to Improve Care and Safety in Maternity Services Across England (page 331)

Read the Review in full

HQIP’s work relating to maternity care