The government has confirmed that the independent inquiry into Sussex maternity services will examine the care provided to all women and their babies from 2018 onwards. It’s thought that more than 1,000 cases of stillbirth, neonatal death, maternal death and severe harm will fall under its remit. In April, the Health Secretary agreed that Donna Ockenden, the former midwife, would chair the review. The decision followed sustained lobbying by bereaved families and a joint investigation by the New Statesman and BBC News.
The inquiry into the care provided by University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust has evolved from the promise, by Wes Streeting in 2025, of a review of nine babies’ deaths to a full-blown investigation. It will operate on an “opt-out basis”: any case that meets the terms of reference will automatically be included, unless families choose otherwise. The same approach underpinned Ockenden’s inquiry into maternity failings in Nottingham. The four-year investigation examined the care received by more than 2,400 families, making it the largest maternity investigation in NHS history. Its findings will be published on 24 June.
The Truth for Our Babies group (TFOB), which represents more than 20 families whose babies died in Sussex between 2020 and 2025, welcomed the decision to grant a “full and inclusive review” into Sussex’s maternity and neonatal services. “Bereaved and harmed families across Sussex have spent years pushing for a review that reflects the scale of harm experienced due to failures in care,” it said. The group is confident the review “will establish what went wrong to deliver accountability and meaningful change.”
A group of nine Sussex families was first promised an independent review of their cases by Streeting in June 2025 – 11 months ago. All had babies die while under the care of University Hospitals Sussex. But by February, families told the New Statesman and BBC News that there had been no progress. We revealed that freedom of information requests tabled by TFOB showed that the deaths of at least 55 babies at Sussex hospitals between 2019 and 2023 might have been avoidable. Following our investigation, more families came forward, and the group identified further potentially avoidable deaths.
This review has been both long fought-for and long-promised. That it will be so wide-ranging is vindication of the work these families have done to try to expose the potential scale of harm. “This outcome has been driven by our group’s extensive organising, advocacy and research despite ongoing struggles, grief and trauma,” TFOB said.
Streeting said that the commitment shown by families in Sussex to “ensuring no other families suffer what they have is admirable, and they deserve the full truth about what happened to them and their babies.” The Health Secretary said they had shown “extraordinary courage” and that he was confident Ockenden would lead a “thorough review”.
Sussex families are hopeful this investigation will finally deliver the answers they have been seeking. “We need to know what has failed, why so many families have been harmed, and what immediate and… long-term actions will be taken to improve maternity safety for future parents and babies in Sussex,” the TFOB group said. They will now work together with Ockenden to develop the inquiry’s terms of reference. Families’ perspectives were “essential”, Ockenden said, “in ensuring that the review is fully inclusive and reflective of their experiences… and meets their needs.”
It is unlikely that answers will come quickly, however. The opt-out approach helps to ensure that no voices are missed, but it also inevitably will lead to many cases being considered. In Nottingham, whose inquiry terms of reference covered births over 13 years, Ockenden’s investigation took four years. The Department of Health and Social Care anticipates that the Sussex inquiry will examine cases spanning a decade by the time it has concluded. Therefore, major findings may take years, not months, to emerge. For families who have already had to wait years without explanation as to why their babies died, often having to fight against the system they hold responsible, it is a price they are willing to pay.
[Further reading: Donna Ockenden appointed to chair Sussex maternity inquiry]
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