'Torture' for bereaved parents as wait goes on to see medical records

FAMILIES involved in the largest-ever NHS maternity inquiry have been waiting over a year to receive medical records about their babies’ care.

- By LAUREN MONAGHAN

The families are part of Donna Ockenden’s review into maternity care failings leading to the harm or deaths of mothers and babies at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), which runs the Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital.

The review, which started in September 2022, is the largest maternity review in NHS history, with 2,425 cases being examined, and is expected to be completed in June.

Many families involved have submitted subject access requests (SARs) to NUH. SARS allow people to request copies of their personal data or other information about them held by an organisation.

Organisations must comply with an SAR within a month of receiving requests, which can be extended to three months if requests are deemed “complex”.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) spoke with families in August last year about SAR delays. At the time, some were waiting months, and information was often returned “incomplete”.

The trust apologised at the time for the delays and said new staff were being hired to handle the requests. Since then, 14 new staff have been hired in its information-handling service. But it appears families are still waiting to receive information, with one family waiting over two years. NUH has now apologised again and says it plans to “eliminate” its SAR backlog by the end of the year.

Carly Wesson and Carl Everson’s baby was wrongly diagnosed with a fatal foetal abnormality, leading to a termination at City Hospital in 2019.

They first submitted a SAR in June 2023 but said in August 2024 that they still had not received information after NUH told them they would receive it no later than September 2023.

They are still waiting now, in September 2025.