2025 Campaign Milestones
The campaign made huge progress in 2025, amplifying families’ voices and putting OUH Maternity Services under public scrutiny.
When Rebecca and Kim founded the campaign in June 2024, they knew from years of listening to women’s birth experiences that the harm happening within OUH’s maternity services would be significant. But we were not prepared for the scale and severity of it.
Over the past 20 months, more than 750 families have joined the campaign and shared their experiences with us. The severity of the experiences shared continue to shock us – and we, and our families, believe they are due to negligence and neglect.
One of the most profound things we have witnessed is families finding each other. People who thought they were entirely alone and had been made to feel their experience was isolated or unusual, have discovered they are not. There are others who understand, who share their pain, and who stand with them. That solidarity has been the foundation of everything we have achieved together.
What we’ve achieved
We’re proud of the huge milestones we achieved in 2025. But let us be clear, these aren’t milestones to celebrate. Our campaign exists because of harm that should never have happened. However, they do show what is possible when families come together, support one another, and refuse to be silenced. Families’ voices are finally being heard.
National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation (NMNI)
Our campaigning directly contributed to OUH being named as one of the Trusts to be investigated as part of the NMNI launched by the Health Secretary. When it was announced that OUH would be included, Rebecca (campaign co-founder) contacted Baroness Amos to arrange in-person and online meetings with our families.
Almost 50 Oxfordshire families met with the NMNI team, providing formal evidence to the investigation. They were incredibly difficult meetings to be in, but there was something powerful around facing them as a collective and knowing that, individually, we are not alone anymore.
We tried to secure more meetings because only 7% of our group at the time had the chance to share their experiences, but unfortunately the NMNI said they didn’t have time. While the Call for Evidence phase of the investigation is live until March, we are disappointed that the call doesn’t offer a dedicated channel for families who have been harmed by OUH.
We also have serious concerns about the integrity of the Call for Evidence process itself. As it stands, anyone can submit evidence without any verification of their identity, or relationship to OUH. This means the process is open to manipulation – including by individuals connected to OUH or those with a conflict of interest. There is nothing to distinguish the testimony of harmed families from submissions made by those with a vested interest in the outcome.
We are calling for a robust verification mechanism to be put in place before the Call for Evidence closes, to ensure the investigation’s findings cannot be undermined.
New Statesman and Channel 4 investigation
In the summer, we approached journalist Hannah Barnes at the New Statesman with concerns about OUH. This led to a 4-month investigation carried out in collaboration with Channel 4 News, revealing failings at OUH. The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting MP, commented that the findings were “scandalous”, “extremely serious” and “truly shocking”.
As a result, the Health Secretary initiated an investigation led by NHS England and DHSC and we await the findings.
Meeting with the Baby Loss APPG in Parliament
On Wednesday 3rd December, a small group of us were invited to meet Andy MacNae MP and Michelle Walsh MP in Parliament. Families shared their experiences of their babies’ preventable deaths and shocking postnatal care, and we told Andy MacNae MP about the hostility and barriers we’ve had put in our way to seeking answers and justice for our members.
We took along a 40-page document we created to share with decision-makers, which included testimonies from our website and the patterns of harm we hear about each day.
Our campaign committee member Laura reflects:
“It's about time. To step into Parliament to share our collective experiences with failings from OUH was of course difficult, but needed now more than ever. We have hit over 700 families within the Families Failed by OUH group, which in itself is a horrifying number of people to have experienced harm."
"Andy MacNae MP, was sincere, listened intently, understood our concerns and genuinely considered the routes available to us to make a real difference and incite systemic change. The meeting had real purpose which let me feeling hopeful at what the future might hold for maternity services at Oxford and the families that use the service.”
Our campaign committee member Chloe reflects:
“Having the opportunity to attend a meeting in Parliament and speaking with Andy MacNae felt like a significant milestone for the campaign. He really took the time to listen and understand the issues that make OUH’s problems so different from the rest of the country. I am disappointed that no Oxfordshire MPs attended the meeting as their support would have been very much welcomed."
"While Andy expressed confidence that the rapid review will help address some of these challenges, I am concerned that the problems in Oxford are systemic, and that the review will not even begin to scratch the surface. I hope that Andy will raise our concerns directly with Mr Streeting.”
We’re looking forward to keeping in touch with Andy and hope he is able to open up more opportunities for our families to be heard.
Media coverage
Many of our brave families shared their experiences in the media to raise awareness of the failings happening at OUH, and putting the Trust under public scrutiny. The campaign secured coverage on Channel 4 News, the New Statesman, BBC South, ITV Meridian, BBC Radio 2, and Sky News among others.
This coverage has been vital in reaching more harmed families who did not know they were not alone, and keeping OUH’s maternity services in the public eye.
Check out our latest news page to see our coverage
Engaging regulators, decision-makers and official bodies
We spent considerable time escalating safeguarding concerns to regulators, MPs and other statutory bodies, including the Department of Health and Social Care, the General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, and many others.
We also sent our 40-page impact report to the OUH Non-Executive Directors.
Response from OUH NON-Executive Directors
After recieving our impact report, we received a written response from the Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) of the OUH Board. We acknowledge that the NEDs committed to three specific things:
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publicly acknowledging the seriousness of our findings;
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giving careful consideration to commissioning a formal governance review;
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and committing to full cooperation with the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation.
The response expressed unreserved apologies to every family let down by OUH’s maternity services, and acknowledged that words cannot ease the trauma families have endured. It also confirmed that our email and the impact report had been forwarded to the Interim Chief Executive, Simon Crowther and to the Chair of the Board, Sir Jonathan Montgomery, with a formal written response to our report promised.
We note these commitments carefully. Apologies and stated intentions are a start but they are only meaningful if they are followed through. We will be monitoring the Trust’s public board meetings, its communications, and its actions closely to hold it to account against every commitment made.
What the response did not address, and what we have not yet received any satisfactory answer on, is how OUH has allowed a culture of harm to persist for so long, why families who raised concerns were not listened to, and what accountability there will be for those responsible.
Apologies without accountability are not enough.
Thank you
We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has showed support for the campaign.
It’s been amazing to receive public support from medical negligence law firms like CL Medilaw and Leigh Day. They have been friends to the campaign from the start and their expertise and experiences working on cases involving OUH has been invaluable. We are deeply grateful.
We are also grateful to charitable organisations who have supported us, including the birth injury charity, MASIC, who provided an online support session for our campaign members.
Thank you to all of our friends in the media, who have put a much-needed spotlight on the failings experienced by our families. The coverage has been vital in reaching more harmed families and placing the Trust under the scrutiny it deserves.
But most of all, we want to thank our families. It’s never easy reliving trauma and harmful birth experiences. We are so grateful to you all for trusting us with your stories and standing with us in solidarity.
Together, we will get the answers we deserve, people will be held responsible for the harm caused, and we will force the Trust to transform their services to ensure every Oxfordshire family receives safe, compassionate and dignified care.
Plans for 2026
We have significant plans this year. This includes expanding our committee so the campaign can run sustainably – because this is not a short fight. At the same time, we are engaging with more MPs and strengthening the case for a Public Inquiry into OUH’s maternity services.
We will be submitting a comprehensive evidence bundle to the NMNI, continuing to escalate concerns to regulators and statutory bodies, and building our legal strategy to ensure those responsible for harm are held to account. We will also be pressing Oxfordshire’s MPs to take a more active role in supporting their constituents who have been failed by OUH.
None of this is easy, but over 750 families have trusted us with their most painful experiences. We will not stop until we have answers and those responsible for the harm are held to account.
Only then can real change happen.