Emmie Studencki said the “last thing [she] saw was blood everywhere” when she had a haemorrhage and subsequently lost baby Quinn amid the failings at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust
The largest maternity review in the history of the NHS will be published on Wednesday outlining care failings that caused the deaths of babies and mothers.
Parents have told how their pleas for help were ignored during the pregnancy until it was too late and their babies had died. Around 2,500 families and more than 800 members of staff have provided evidence to the probe into Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust.
The scandal-hit trust which runs Nottingham City Hospital and Queen’s Medical Centre has already paid out millions of pounds in compensation for failings that led to deaths and life-changing injuries.
Sarah and Jack Hawkins trusted their colleagues — but were left heartbroken
The inquiry will be led by top midwife Donna Ockenden who previously carried out a landmark investigation into maternity units in Shrewsbury and Telford.
When senior physiotherapist Sarah Hawkins and her hospital consultant husband Jack were expecting their first child, Harriet, they were both working at NUH and trusted their colleagues would look after them.
As her labour stretched on for days in April 2016, the couple made 10 calls to the maternity unit and visited twice – but they were repeatedly told to stay at home and relax despite raising concerns that Sarah couldn’t feel the baby moving.
When she was eventually admitted in her sixth day of labour, midwives struggled to find Harriet’s heartbeat and a scan revealed she had died.
Jack, 57, said: “I’m heartbroken that my first daughter Harriet is not here. She should be alive and yet, 10 years later, so many of our questions have not been answered and not one single person has been held accountable.”
After the death was confirmed, Sarah was left struggling in labour and it was another nine hours before her baby was delivered stillborn.
The trust initially told the couple their daughter had died due to an infection and that they should “try to move on”.
But Dr Hawkins, an infections expert, was sure there was no sign of this and challenged an internal investigation which had cleared NUH of wrongdoing. An external inquiry eventually found 13 failings in the care provided and said Harriet’s death was “almost certainly preventable”.
Sarah, 43, said: “It’s massive, because we worked there as well. Not only was our daughter killed, but we couldn’t go back to our careers, our jobs, everything. Every single aspect of life was changed.”
‘The last thing I saw was blood everywhere’
When Emmie Studencki started losing blood late during her second pregnancy in 2021 she went into hospital three times – but was sent home and told not to worry.
In a fourth bleed, she lost more than two pints of blood and was taken into hospital in Nottingham by ambulance but her ambulance notes were lost by maternity staff.
Emmie, now 37, and partner Ryan Parker, 39 had their requests for a caesarean section denied. She said: “I kept questioning why not but they just said: ‘You’ve given birth before, you can do it again’.”
No one informed the couple, from Barrowby, Lincolnshire, that she was suspected of having had a placental abruption – a dangerous complication where the placenta separates from the uterus wall too early, restricting oxygen supply to the baby.
A heart rate monitor showed their baby boy Quinn’s heart kept fluctuating – a sign of distress – and she suddenly developed “the worst physical pain I’ve ever felt” and started screaming. Although a doctor pressed the emergency button they say a nurse still refused her an emergency C-section, insisting it was not necessary and encouraging Emmie instead to go for a walk. When a doctor finally decided to break her waters, it triggered a massive haemorrhage.
Emmie rapidly lost seven pints of blood. She said: “The last thing I saw was blood everywhere and the next thing I knew I was coming around from surgery.”
When she woke up panicking about their son, the couple were first told everything was fine and then later that Quinn was “very poorly”. They say staff kept them apart for more than 10 hours, telling the couple it was “not a good time” to see him, before finally acknowledging that he would not survive.
Emmie said: “They robbed our time with him from us. We will never forgive them for that.” Quinn passed away in their arms when he was two days old. An inquest in 2022 found a “series of errors” in their care.
NUH was fined £1.6million last year after admitting criminal charges of causing avoidable harm to Quinn and exposing his mother to significant risk of avoidable harm, as well as failing to provide safe care in two other cases.
The couple, who both work in higher education, said NUH has repeatedly failed to be transparent over what happened and want to see a national public inquiry.
Emmie said: “The way the trust has acted has made our grief 100 per cent worse. We don’t want and won’t accept an apology from NUH: we want a confession.”
Gary and Sarah Andrews, whose daughter Wynter died in 2019 some 23 minutes after being born, said they have been failed by NUH, which was prosecuted over the care it provided to the family. The trust was fined £800,000 after admitting failings.
Gary, 38, said: “The report being published today needs to serve as a wake-up call to the NHS locally and nationally, that what’s gone on before cannot be allowed to continue.”
Nottinghamshire Police launched a corporate manslaughter case last year as part of a wider criminal investigation into maternity failings at NUH.
On Monday, Nottinghamshire Police said two men had been arrested “in connection with operating practices in the mortuary service” provided by the trust. The men, aged 55 and 59, were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office.
Regulators the General Medical Council (GMC) and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) are investigating allegations against individual staff from NUH.
The Ockenden report published at around midday on Wednesday will cover suspected care failings during the period from 2012 to 2025.