Medical negligence lawyers stand ready to help address the wider issues raised by the latest devastating report into maternity care failings, uncovering systemic issues that have caused avoidable harm to hundreds of families.

A report by senior midwife Donna Ockenden, following the largest maternity review in NHS history, found that more than 500 mothers and babies suffered potentially avoidable harm or died because of systemic failings at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The review examined maternity care between 2012 and 2025 and concluded that different care may have changed the outcome for 260 babies who either died or suffered harm.

Among its many findings, the report highlighted the startling reality that clinical negligence claims are costing the NHS almost as much in compensation as it spends on delivering maternity care itself. Crucially, however, Ockenden did not criticise lawyers or the legal costs associated with claims. Instead, she focused on the clinical failures that give rise to litigation in the first place.

As Ockenden observed: “Whilst these figures are substantial, behind them is the incalculable effects – financial, physical, emotional and psychological – on the families themselves, with many careers and relationships shattered by what they experienced at NUH.”

For clinical negligence lawyers representing bereaved parents and families raising children with life-changing disabilities caused by maternity mistakes, the report’s conclusions are sadly unsurprising. These cases reveal recurring themes of missed opportunities, poor communication, failures to escalate concerns and delays in intervention—issues that have been highlighted repeatedly over the past two decades.

The findings also mirror those of the recently published review by Baroness Amos into maternity care across England, which identified widespread systemic problems in maternity and neonatal services across the 12 NHS trusts it examined. Together, the reports reinforce concerns that these are not isolated failures but symptoms of a national problem requiring a national response.

The warnings themselves are not new. In 2015, Dr Bill Kirkup CBE, chair of the Morecambe Bay Investigation into maternity and neonatal services, issued a stark reminder that every trust should recognise that such failures could happen anywhere.

“It is vital that the lessons, now plain to see, are learnt and acted upon, not least by other trusts, which must not believe that ‘it could not happen here’. If those lessons are not acted upon, we are destined sooner or later to add again to the roll of names.”

Eleven years later, that warning has proved tragically prophetic.
The NHS now needs urgent, measurable action to ensure the recommendations from these reviews are implemented nationally and embedded within mandatory obstetric and midwifery training. Reports alone do not save lives; meaningful change in clinical practice does.

There are reasons for cautious optimism. Between 2021 and 2025, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives worked alongside the Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute to develop a programme aimed at reducing avoidable brain injury during childbirth. The initiative focuses on improving the recognition of and response to foetal deterioration during labour and is now being rolled out across maternity services.

However, implementation must accelerate. Training should be mandatory and include early escalation to senior clinicians, effective emergency decision-making, multidisciplinary communication and meaningful engagement with families throughout their care.

Equally important is the need to address organisational culture. Staff must feel empowered to raise concerns without fear, parents must be listened to when they identify something is wrong, and serious incidents must lead to genuine learning rather than defensive responses.

For those acting on behalf of injured families, the legal framework is well established: breach of duty, causation, evidence and the assessment of damages. Yet behind every clinical negligence claim is a family who never expected to find themselves in court. Litigation is rarely the goal. Most simply want answers, accountability and reassurance that what happened to them will not happen to someone else.

The Ockenden review should represent a genuine turning point for maternity safety and for any area when care falls below acceptable standards. Families affected by avoidable failings deserve openness, early resolution, appropriate support and, above all, confidence that the lessons identified time and again have finally been learned.