New Statesman and Channel 4 coverage of Families Failed by OUH Maternity Services: Our statement
Wednesday 5 November 2025
Four months ago, we contacted Hannah Barnes at The New Statesman and Robbie Boyd and Victoria Macdonald from Channel 4 News with concerns about the extensive harm taking place within Oxford University Hospitals Maternity Services. A four-month long investigation took place and the findings were published across print, online and will be featured on TV this evening.
We would like to thank Hannah, Robbie and Victoria for agreeing to carry out the investigation and for their dedication and passion for amplifying families’ voices and putting the harm caused to us in the spotlight for the nation to see. And for finally securing a response from the Health Secretary.
The findings confirmed everything we – as a campaign group – already knew. We are the ones who live with the lasting impact of the harm caused to us by OUH.
We want to thank our campaign members and others for sharing their experiences as part of this investigation. It’s always so hard for families to speak out publicly, especially when their experiences have been previously dismissed and denied by the institutions and channels set up to gather feedback.
We would like to comment on a number of details within the news articles:
Covert recording
On 3rd November 2024, our campaign held a private support meeting for families affected by maternity harm at OUH. At this point, the campaign had around 45 members.
Ten families attended, sharing highly personal experiences of trauma, loss and ongoing legal processes. The meeting was held in a hired hall and advertised only within our closed Facebook group for verified members.
Everyone was distraught - except one person who claimed to have received poor care at the John Radcliffe Hospital, but was later discovered to have been a private maternity patient there and who gives a glowing recount of her private caesarean birth on a publicly-available podcast.
We later discovered that this individual had covertly recorded the support event. We were devastated to learn this; it was a shocking invasion of privacy and breach of trust.
We would like to emphasise the following important points:
-
The meeting was a private event for harmed families, advertised only in our closed Facebook group.
-
It felt as though the individual tried to steer the group away from our campaign’s intention to call for a public inquiry, instead suggesting we fundraise for the hospital and volunteer – in the very same wards we were harmed on!! No parent who had experienced harm would have made the suggestion.
-
The individual claims that a throwaway comment made by a mother who attended the support event with her disabled son was a ‘threat’. No-one else present, including a police officer and two whistleblowers present, deemed it a ‘threat’.
-
A week after the support event we discovered that the individual held multiple roles connected to OUH, including as PPI lead for an OUH-sponsored research project. As a result we removed the individual from our private Facebook and WhatsApp groups.
-
It wasn’t until the day after we removed the individual from our private groups that she decided to report the comment to the police - 8 days after the event. To us, this timing felt like retaliation for removing her, rather than a genuine concern about a ‘threat’.
-
We reported our concerns about the circumstances of the individual becoming a member of our harmed families’ group for three months and covertly recording our support event via protected, regulatory channels and to OUH directly.
The impact of this individual’s actions continues to cause extreme distress to those of us who attended the meeting. We were left shaken, fearful and paranoid as our trust had been broken.
To learn that this individual’s private business has since been “awarded a place on an innovation programme run by OUH…” and that, “A condition of participation is that OUH takes a small equity stake in each business.” is incredibly concerning for families within our campaign. The individual would have been applying for this programme at the time of the covert recording; it is all deeply concerning and there is a lack of transparency and accountability.
We welcome Wes Streeting’s public statement describing the covert recording as a “sickening betrayal of trust.”
Families deserve privacy, dignity and safety when sharing their experiences of harm.
In a further betrayal of trust, we discovered via the New Statesman reporting that “Around the same time, [name] was appointed to the paid position of chair of the Oxfordshire Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) – a group made up of parents, OUH staff and other regional health officials. Its job is to listen to mothers and contribute to the development of safe maternity services provided by OUH.”
To learn that the individual who covertly recorded us now holds this role is unthinkable. We even reported the covert recording to the ICB, who fund the MNVP, earlier this year and they said they would be investigating.
What’s particularly concerning about this news is that Baroness Amos and the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation (NMNI) team are working with MNVPs across the country. In Oxford, the MNVP initially appealed for families with both positive and negative experiences to come forward to meet with the team - despite the investigation focusing specifically on failings in care.
This message was later retracted, and the MNVP clarified that it was seeking only those with negative experiences. However, the family meetings held by Baroness Amos for families recruited by Oxfordshire’s MNVP today will have been gatekept by the very individual who covertly recorded us – how is that ethical, rigorous, or just?
If the NMNI is to provide any useful insight into maternity failings nationally, it needs to call for the suspension of the national MNVP system which is rooted in the promotion of natural childbirth ideology, and appears to benefit those with a vested interest in ‘birthwork’. We need a truly independent feedback channel; not one that seeks out positive experiences, and dismisses harmed families.
Accusations of harassment and defamation
We categorically reject any accusation of harassment and defamation.
All communications shared by the campaign committee are informed by evidence and the testimonies of families within our group.
We proactively protect the identity of staff – for example, by anonymising names in testimonies on our website and asking members of the private campaign group not to mention staff names. To insinuate that the information we’re sharing is dangerous and misleading is outrageous and tarnishes the campaign – which is run voluntarily by harmed families who are having to relive their trauma every day through running the campaign.
Statement from Rebecca:
“The legal letter I received while on holiday with my young children in August has had a devastating impact on my life and my family over the past three months.
I am a mother of two young children. I experienced a traumatic birth at the John Radcliffe Hospital in 2016, where I was denied a caesarean despite severe pre-eclampsia identified at 41 weeks which had been missed for weeks, and received inadequate care with my second child in 2021. I’m also an educator and a PhD student. I lead the campaign voluntarily, driven by my own experience of preventable harm and years advocating for families denied the care they deserved – particularly women denied caesarean births by OUH.
Receiving the letter in August felt like being punished for doing the right thing. I had raised concerns about patient safety to the appropriate authorities – the GMC, CQC, NHS England, my MP, and the Health Secretary. These are the channels we are told to use. These are protected activities in a functioning democracy. I submitted two Freedom of Information requests to better understand policies and practices affecting women’s care. I made formal complaints.
For that I received a threat of legal action. The letter accused me of harassment and defamation. It characterised legitimate complaints to regulators and FOI requests as harassment.
This left me incredibly scared – I’ve been so scared for my family. I haven’t been able to sleep. It’s really ruined the past three months of my life and I have had to be signed off from my studies by my GP. The accusations felt designed to be incredibly personal when I was advocating for so many families within the wider campaign. To be tarnished with such horrific accusations when all I’m trying to do is raise awareness of preventable harm and foster positive change in maternity care feels devastating.
This is what happens when you challenge powerful institutions. This is the response. OUH and its staff should be open to listening and should be doing everything they can to change practices to prevent harm – the response should not be singling out patient safety advocates and making them feel intimidated.”
The Health Secretary’s response
We are pleased to see Wes Streeting’s strong reaction to the findings of the investigation, which he branded as “scandalous”.
“I’m concerned about the extent to which we’ve got a… cultural problem across the NHS, where protecting the reputation of the NHS – and of trusts, sparing the blushes of executive leaders and clinicians – is prioritised over and above doing the right thing by patients.”
Disappointingly, we have written to Wes Streeting on three occasions outlining the harm caused to our campaign members and have not received a response.
We call on Health Secretary Wes Streeting to:
-
Launch a judge-led public inquiry into maternity care and governance failures at OUH – with full investigatory powers and family participation
-
Suspend Oxfordshire’s MNVP and remove the current Chair
-
Call for accountability regarding the key failings identified within the New Statesman and Channel 4 News investigation
-
Establish legal protections for patient safety advocates – so that raising concerns with regulators and MPs can never again be characterised as harassment
-
Mandate independent oversight of maternity complaints and Duty of Candour processes – OUH cannot be trusted to mark its own homework
-
Ensure the NMNI has teeth – with powers to demand accountability, not just recommendations that gather dust
To the families reading this and recognising their own experiences:
You are not alone. You are not dramatic or anxious. You were not difficult. You deserved better care, and you deserve answers and accountability now. Join us. Add your voice. Help us ensure no more families suffer what we have.
To current and former OUH staff who have contacted us in confidence:
Thank you. Your courage in sharing what you have witnessed, despite fear of professional consequences, has been invaluable.
To the institution and staff that failed us and tried to dismiss us:
We are not going away. You can dismiss our concerns and protect your reputation but you cannot make us forget what happened to us. You can’t undo the trauma you caused and you can’t stop us from demanding change.
Nearly 700 families are united and we will not be silenced. We have waited so long for accountability and now the nation is watching.
Do your duty, Oxfordshire MPs and Mr Streeting – call for a public inquiry into OUH’s maternity services.
Note to media: Contact info@familiesfailedbyOUH.co.uk for comment
Links news coverage:
www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2025/11/britains-next-maternity-scandal