Statement in Response to the Ockenden Report

The findings of the Ockenden Review into maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust demand more than acknowledgement. They demand sustained attention to the conditions in which safe, compassionate care becomes possible, and to the conditions in which it is allowed to fail.

At IRNCM, we believe compassion in maternity care is not an optional quality, nor a matter of individual kindness. It is bound up with safety, accountability, listening, honesty, professional courage and the capacity to act when something is wrong.

The review describes devastating harm to women, babies and families. It also raises urgent questions for all of us working across maternity care, research, education and leadership. What happens when women are not heard? When staff do not feel safe to speak? When warning signs become normalised? When opportunities to learn are repeatedly lost?

These are not peripheral questions. They sit at the heart of safe maternity care. Our full statement is shared below. Alongside it, we invite researchers, educators, clinicians, students, service leaders and maternity advocates to work with us in strengthening the evidence base for compassionate maternity care, and in examining the organisational and relational conditions that allow it to be sustained.

The courage and persistence of the families who made this review possible must be met with more than words. The lessons must shape how maternity care is researched, taught, led and lived.

Every family deserves to be heard. Every family deserves honesty. Every family deserves safe and compassionate care.