A patient whose partner suffered a near-fatal ordeal during maternity care at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust has said the root cause was not austerity but an ingrained arrogance and an “utter unwillingness to listen or learn” among staff. The account, given in a letter to this website, challenges the narrative that financial pressures alone explain the trust’s catastrophic record, which includes a police corporate manslaughter investigation and the largest maternity inquiry ever conducted in the UK.
A Culture of Arrogance
The writer, who asked to remain anonymous, described routine wound inspections and sample-taking that simply never happened – despite evident understaffing. “What I saw again and again was an ingrained arrogance, an attitude of ‘we know better’ and an utter unwillingness to listen or learn,” they wrote. The consequences were “very nearly fatal”. No apology has been received and no one has been held accountable.
The letter reflects a pattern identified by multiple inquiries. At Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), the independent inquiry chaired by Donna Ockenden – the largest of its kind in the UK – is now examining the care of more than 1,700 families, with an “opt-out” approach that allows all affected to participate unless they choose not to. The inquiry is expected to conclude by 24 June 2026. Its scope was expanded after Channel 4 News and The Independent reported that dozens of babies died or suffered brain damage due to negligent deliveries at NUH between 2010 and 2019. Figures from the trust show at least 46 babies sustained permanent brain damage and 19 were stillborn in that period. By 2020, 201 claims had been made against NUH, with 84 settled.
The trust has already faced substantial legal penalties. In January 2026, it pleaded guilty to failings that led to the death of Sarah Andrews and her baby Wynter in September 2019, and was fined £800,000 – the largest fine ever imposed on an NHS trust for maternity care. Months later, Nottingham Magistrates Court levied a £1.6 million fine after a “catalogue of failures” caused the deaths of three babies and their mothers in 2021. Nottinghamshire Police have since opened a corporate manslaughter investigation into the trust.
Regulators have repeatedly highlighted cultural problems. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated NUH’s maternity services “inadequate” in October 2020, issuing a warning notice. Although later inspections found some improvements, the service remains rated “Requires Improvement” overall, with breaches in security, staffing and management identified as recently as May 2025. Reports from former staff and families detail women’s concerns being dismissed, delays in escalating care, and failures to act on reports of reduced fetal movement. Shockingly, pregnant women were allegedly labelled “FOH” – “F*** Off Home” – on internal whiteboards, and some senior midwives advised colleagues not to be “too kind” to patients. A “culture of fear” was reported, with staffing concerns allegedly ignored.
Positive Experiences Amid the Failings
Not all patients who passed through NUH’s maternity units encountered the same arrogance. Kate Simpson, from Beeston, Nottinghamshire, wrote to this website describing her long and complicated labour in 2010, when the care she received was “outstanding”. “The midwife stayed by my side the whole time, and then came to the ward at the end of her shift to check on me again. She and all the staff made me feel cared for and safe at a time when I was terrified and in significant pain.”
Ms Simpson acknowledged the suffering of other families but insisted that the many midwives and health professionals who perform an “amazing job” deserve recognition for working “despite the conditions in which they may have been working”. Her testimony echoes the “Better Births” report, which advocated continuity of carer – a model where women are supported by the same midwifery team throughout pregnancy. That approach has been shown to improve outcomes and build trust, but its full implementation has been disrupted by staff shortages and the pandemic.
Professional Perspectives
Dr Thomas C McAnea, a GP with 22 years of NHS service, wrote that he had reflected on whether he had ever unintentionally dismissed a patient’s pain. While he hoped not, he recalled his own time in obstetrics two decades ago, when all the midwives on the labour ward were female. “One of the main reasons I chose to leave obstetrics was the contempt I saw midwives show their patients,” he said. “I was perplexed that women could lack such compassion for other women at one of the most vulnerable moments in their lives.”
Dr McAnea acknowledged that working in an underresourced environment may have “brutalised” some professionals, but he stressed that compassion and competence are valued equally by patients – and that too often, the former is missing. He also noted that the NHS “pays scant regard to the wellbeing of those who work in it”, a point underlined by extensive research showing an “inextricable link” between staff wellbeing and the quality of patient care. When staff are exhausted and overstretched, communication, compassion and monitoring all deteriorate.
Dr Michael Stevenson, a doctor from Bootle, Cumbria, offered a different perspective: the conflict between medical obstetricians and midwives. During his six months in obstetrics and gynaecology, he saw midwives adopt a “distinctly superior attitude” to junior doctors and insist that medical intervention should be avoided at all costs. He said this mindset was exposed in the 2015 inquiry into morbidity at Furness General Hospital in Barrow, which found a “lethal mix” of failings – including a “cavalier attitude” among some midwives – that led to the deaths of one mother and 11 babies between 2004 and 2013.
The wider picture across the NHS shows that such attitudinal problems are not confined to Nottingham. The Ockenden Review into Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust uncovered similar avoidable deaths and injuries over two decades. A CQC report on Mid and South Essex NHS Trust found six babies starved of oxygen. In each case, chronic staffing shortages, poor leadership, a lack of transparency, and a failure to learn from incidents have been identified as recurring contributors.
Patriarchal attitudes within medicine also play a role. As Zoe Williams wrote recently, “There’s a lot of patriarchal baggage in medicine generally” – a view that Dr McAnea said he shared. Medical research has historically excluded women, meaning pain thresholds and symptoms have been calibrated to male bodies. Women’s testimony is often deemed less credible, and women of colour face additional bias. Some reports indicate that South Asian women have been perceived as complaining about pain more, a response attributed to discrimination rather than cultural difference. These systemic factors compound the arrogance and unwillingness to listen that the anonymous patient’s partner experienced first-hand.