By Anna Whittaker, Local Democracy Reporter
More than 1,000 letters have been sent out to families who may have received poor maternity care, the chair of Nottingham’s major review says.
Donna Ockenden is leading an independent review into Nottingham University Hospitals’ maternity services at Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital.
The letters have been sent to those who may have received inadequate care.
A previous letter sent by the hospital trust received low response rates.
Ms Ockenden writes: “The hospital has identified that your care may have been inadequate and so it is important for the Review to know about your care so that we can try to make maternity care safer for families in future.
“The hospital has given me your name and contact details so that I can explain to you what we are doing and how you can help.”
The review is due to include around 1,800 cases after it changed to an ‘opt out’ system, meaning women’s cases will automatically be included unless they withdraw consent.
The letter gives families the option to ‘opt out’ of the review.
On September 25, a total of 1,045 letters were sent out to families by the review team.
This includes families who did not respond to the first letter which was sent in 2022, and families with new cases identified by the hospital trust since September 2022.
Initial letters from the trust and Donna Ockenden were sent out to families across November and January 2022.
These were sent to families who had experienced stillbirth, neonatal deaths, brain damage to the baby, harm to mothers or mothers who have lost their lives.
But only a quarter of people responded – Ms Ockenden said this could be down to the letter only being available in English. The first letter was also sent out on trust headed paper.
So far, only a “small number” of families have said they do not wish to be part of the review.
The latest letters will be in a white envelope with a purple envelope inside – as Ms Ockenden said the colour is associated with her Nottingham review, and the previous review she carried out into Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust.
Ms Ockenden told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “It is a personal letter from me, explaining the work of the review and telling families what they need to do.
“It will include access to psychological support and the ability to translate the letter into eight different languages.
“We are absolutely committed to supporting and helping all families who make contact with us.
“We recognise that receiving the letter may be difficult but support is available.
“The more families that we have join our review, the more meaningful and sustained the changes can be towards the safety of maternity services.
“We will absolutely respect every family’s decision. We are anticipating that a small number of families will choose not to join the review.
“We won’t be posting out letters to families for whom this is a difficult time of year. We will hold back those letters for a few weeks.”
Ms Ockenden said she believes there is around another two years of work to do on the maternity review.
The review team are also working with Small Steps Big Changes, to ensure that the letters are accessible to all.
Donna Sherratt, head of programme with the non-profit organisation, said the focus is “making sure every voice is heard” in the review.
She said some women, especially with historic cases, may not know that their experience could be included.
She said: “I work with partners across the city from an early years perspective and all of those organisations have contact with families.
“When we met Donna Ockenden, she was saying it would be useful if the workforce were aware the letters were going out.
“I have connected Donna with library services to make sure their staff are aware that some families may access the letters in libraries.
“We are looking at how we can raise the profile of the IT equipment available in libraries.
“It’s about creating a comfort blanket around the letters that are going out so it doesn’t feel isolating.
“We need to break down barriers for families to build their confidence in speaking up.
“Being able to hear individual voice deepens the understanding of what needs to change in the future.
“Historically outside of this review, we hear that ethnic minorities relay raising issues because they don’t believe that their voice will be heard.
“They need to have trust that they will be listened to.”
It comes as Nottingham University Hospitals has confirmed it will investigate the care of around 150 women whose experiences do not fit the criteria of the Ockenden review.
Anthony May, Chief Executive at Nottingham University Hospitals said: “We know that there are mothers and families that have concerns about their care, but whose cases don’t fit into the scope of the independent review into maternity services.
“As with the families who are part of the review, we are committed to hearing from and listening to those women and families, so that we can understand fully what happened in their care and learn from it.
“The Independent Maternity Review team have started writing to those women and families to inform them that although they don’t fit in the terms of reference for the Review, that they can contact us, and we will work through their concerns using appropriate processes, including an independent clinical team where required, to review the care that they received.”
“As the recent CQC [Care Quality Commission] inspections confirm, our maternity services are improving, and all at NUH are committed to continuing that progress. Listening to all women and families will help us learn, and create a safe culture in which our maternity service can continue our improvement journey.”
