Child death files deleted ‘methodically and selectively’

Records of child, neonatal, and maternal deaths held by a trust’s medical examiner service were “methodically and selectively” deleted, an external investigation has found.

Nottingham University Hospitals Trust discovered the files were missing in July 2024, and they were recovered within the next month. At the time, the trust was the subject of an independent review of its maternity services led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden, the largest such inquiry in NHS history.

Families involved in the review were not told about the deletion until February 2025, more than six months after it happened. Nottinghamshire Police launched their own investigation shortly after it was made public and concluded it was most likely done “intentionally/maliciously”.

NUH commissioned the independent review, done by a barrister, in the summer of 2025, and the findings were set out in board papers today (6 November), first obtained by Sky News.

The review concluded the files – which contained bereavement and medical examiner’s records relating to child deaths between 2019 and October 2022 – had been “methodically and selectively deleted and that the deletion was intentional rather than accidental”.

It could not establish who was responsible for this due to the lack of “auditing functionality” at the time. It also found the shared drive with the files was “widely available and was not consistently removed when individuals no longer required it”.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 6 November 2026