Statement from the Bishop of Nottingham on the Ockenden Review

24th June 2026:

Today the Ockenden Review into maternity care at our city’s hospitals has been published, and with it so many families across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire once again carry a grief no parent should have to bear: a child who should be here and is not; a child now living with the lasting consequences of failures in their care; or a mother gravely harmed, in body and mind, in the very place she trusted to keep her and her baby safe. The Review itself names such a loss “an immeasurably heartbreaking experience that leaves profound and lasting wounds,” and adds that where it might have been prevented, the pain runs deeper still. No family carries such sorrow alone. It is shared by everyone around them, and by a city and county that grieves alongside them today.

The Catholic community in Nottingham holds you, and each of your beloved children, in our hearts and in our prayers, commending the souls of these little ones to the tender mercy of God, and trusting in the words of Jesus, who said: “Let the little children come to me.” The Review is right that answers, accountability and proper support are necessities, not extras. And we stand with these families in a deeper hope still: that death and loss do not have the last word; and in the resolve that their courage in coming forward must now bear fruit in real and lasting change, so that no family need walk this road again.

Days such as today remind us of what we must never take for granted: that every human life is precious beyond measure, that to bring a child into the world is one of the most profound things we do, and that the love between a mother and her child, and the hope carried by an expectant family, are a gift to the whole of society. It is because each of these lives mattered so completely that their loss, or the grave harm caused to them,  matters so deeply.

For anyone weighed down by today’s news, whether of faith or none, the doors of Nottingham Cathedral are open to you. Come in, light a candle, sit in the quiet, take a moment simply to be still and to pray, to reflect, to remember, to grieve. Whatever you need, you are most welcome.

“The Lord is close to the broken-hearted” (Psalm 34).

✠ Patrick

Bishop of Nottingham