Police assess impact of data loss on investigation into baby deaths in Nottingham
Police are assessing whether the loss of maternity data had an effect on an ongoing investigation into baby deaths.
Police are assessing whether the loss of historical maternity data during routine IT work at an NHS trust has had any impact on an ongoing investigation into deaths and injuries of mothers and babies at its hospitals, the trust has said.
A database containing maternity records relating to women and babies who received care between September 2011 and November 2022 was accidentally overwritten during technical work at Nottingham University Hospital (NUH) NHS Trust.
Information has been restored since the “human error” on August 18 but the trust has not been able to restore the complete history showing who viewed maternity records during this period.
Maternity services at NUH trust have come under scrutiny after a Government-ordered review led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden found that more than 500 mothers and babies suffered potentially avoidable harm or died due to “deeply embedded systemic failures”.
Nottinghamshire Police have been notified of the data incident and are assessing whether there has been any impact on Operation Perth – the investigation into deaths and injuries related to maternity care at Nottingham City Hospital and Nottingham Queen’s Medical Centre, which are part of NUH trust.
In August, an error occurred while a copy of a radiotherapy database was being created, according to NUH.
A setting that should have been changed before a set of pre-written computer instructions was run was “missed” and the process was carried out on a maternity database instead, causing records to be overwritten.
The trust has restored clinical information, including notes, observations and test results, but has been unable to restore a complete history of who viewed records.
It means “in most cases” the trust may be unable to confirm whether a maternity record was viewed by a particular person between September 2011 and November 2022.
Information about current maternity patients has not been affected and no patient information was “accessed or used inappropriately” after the incident, NUH added.
The trust said the Information Commissioner’s Office was notified and that it has taken steps to improve its technical processes to prevent a similar incident.
Andy Callow, chief digital and information officer at NUH, said: “I am sorry for the concern and distress this incident may cause to women and families affected.
“On 18 August 2026, a human error during a routine technical process resulted in a maternity records database being unintentionally overwritten. We took immediate action to investigate the incident and recover the affected information.”