Regulator suspends midwife in maternity probe

A midwife has been suspended by a regulator as part of its investigation into Nottingham's maternity services.

Paul Rees, chief executive of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), said an interim order had been handed to a midwife connected to Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) while fitness to practice proceedings took place.

The trust, which operates Queen's Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital, is the subject of the biggest maternity inquiry in the history of the NHS, led by senior midwife Donna Ockendon.

Alongside this, Rees said the NMC had 91 open fitness to practice cases related to staff members connected to NUH.

Ockenden began an inquiry in September 2022 to investigate stillbirths, neonatal deaths, injured babies and mothers, and maternal deaths at NUH, with 2,505 cases being examined.

Later, in June 2025, Nottinghamshire Police launched a manslaughter case as part of its wider criminal investigation into maternity failings at the trust, named Operation Perth.

In an update on Tuesday, the force said the scope of its investigation had been expanded to include potential offences committed under the Offences against the Person Act and the Abortion Act.

Rees told families affected by the scandal on Saturday the fitness to practice process was about "taking action" against nurses and midwives who are seen as posing a risk to public safety in the future and was not about "punishing people" for past events.

Speaking to the BBC, he said the NMC was "initially too slow to get off the mark", but added that since he was appointed as permanent chief executive in July, the NMC had built a new leadership team and was "doing things differently".

Rees described how in the past the organisation was "way too slow, old fashioned and stuck in our ways".

"Some might say we were in an ivory tower," he added.

Rees said the regulator had invested "quite substantially" in the team investigating fitness to practice cases related to staff members connected to NUH.

He added: "As a result of the increased investment, and also the new approach we're taking, which is ensuring there's much more clinical advice earlier on in each case we're making more rapid progress."

However, he told the BBC investigations could take a "long time", with some cases having documents of more than 1,000 pages and the NMC having to liaise with other agencies, such as the police.

Rees added the organisation had a target of 15 months for cases to be resolved, and said in 2023, 60.8% of cases were resolved in that timeframe, compared with 74% as of March this year.

Sarah and Dr Jack Hawkins's daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016 following maternity failings at City Hospital in Nottingham.

"I think it's it's very frustrating it's taken so long to get here, but I do feel like the NMC are now starting to move in the right direction," said Sarah Hawkins.

"It is on the back of lots of preventable harm and death but I feel optimistic about it now."

Jack Hawkins said families previously felt they had to "chase regulators" to get them to do what families felt they should have been doing by themselves.

"We have to say though that the efforts made by the NMC are really exceptional, and it's not easy changing a big organisation like that, but I think we're seeing big change," he added.

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