Human Error Wipes 11 Years of Maternity Record Access History at NUH

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) has lost part of the historical audit data connected to maternity records after an IT error caused a database to be overwritten. The affected information covered women and babies who received maternity care from the trust between September 2011 and November 2022.

NUH said it restored patient care information and that current care is not affected. However, it could not fully recover the history showing who viewed maternity records during the 11-year period, leaving the trust unable in most cases to confirm whether a particular person accessed a record.

How the database was overwritten

The data loss occurred on August 18 during routine technical work. According to NUH, its IT department was creating a copy of a radiotherapy database for reporting purposes when a set of pre-written computer instructions was applied incorrectly.

Those instructions had previously been used for a different hospital system. A setting that needed to be updated before the process ran was missed. Consequently, the operation targeted a maternity database rather than the intended radiotherapy database and overwrote its contents.

NUH described the incident as the result of human error. The affected database contained information from the trust’s previous maternity database, spanning care provided from September 2011 through November 2022.

The incident illustrates the risks of reusing automated instructions across systems without confirming that every environment-specific setting has been changed. In this case, a single missed configuration led the process to run against the wrong database.

What information remains unavailable

The most significant unrecovered material is the complete viewing history for maternity records. This type of history can show who accessed a record and when.

NUH said that, in most cases, it may now be unable to determine whether a specific person viewed a maternity record during the affected period. The trust did not say that the incident caused anyone to access or misuse patient information.

According to its statement:

No patient information was accessed or used inappropriately because of the error.
Current patient care is not affected.
Patient care-related information was restored.
The full historical record of who viewed maternity files could not be recovered.

The distinction is important. The trust recovered clinical information used in care, but parts of the audit history associated with those records remain missing.

Clinical records were restored

NUH said the issue was escalated within minutes of being identified. It then worked with external specialists and reviewed other information sources in an effort to recover as much data as possible.

The trust was able to restore care-related material, including:

Clinical notes
Observations
Test results
Other information recorded as part of a person’s care

Because those details were recovered, NUH said the loss does not affect ongoing patient treatment. Its public statement focused instead on the inability to reconstruct the complete access history for the older maternity database.

Andy Callow, NUH’s chief digital and information officer, said the trust completed a patient safety incident investigation. He also said NUH had strengthened technical controls and processes to reduce the likelihood of a similar event, although the trust did not specify what changes it made.

Callow apologized for the concern and distress the incident may cause women and families affected by the loss.

Police are assessing the incident

The database error comes while NUH’s maternity services are already subject to a broader police investigation. A review released in June reported allegations that more than 500 mothers and babies suffered potentially avoidable harm or died because of systemic failings within the trust.

Reported problems included understaffing, insufficiently trained employees and failures to listen to concerns raised by parents.

Nottinghamshire Police is now examining whether the latest data loss affects that wider investigation into maternity-related injuries and deaths. Police are also working to retrieve the missing information and considering whether criminal charges are appropriate.

Deputy Chief Constable Rob Griffin, one of the leaders of the investigation, said that no crime had been identified at the time of the latest report.

The trust has faced a separate maternity data incident before. In June 2025, a local police investigation concluded that a file containing records for hundreds of NUH maternity patients was likely deleted intentionally or maliciously. NUH recovered that information within days. The latest incident has instead been attributed by the trust to human error during routine IT work.

Families raise concerns about record security

Nottingham Maternity Family Group, which represents some families involved in the broader maternity investigation, described the latest data loss as “extremely unnerving.”

The group said families who had already experienced preventable harm, injury or bereavement should not also have to worry about the security of records documenting their experiences.

Although NUH says clinical information has been restored and there is no effect on current care, the missing viewing history could still matter to people seeking clarity about how their records were handled. The police review will determine whether the loss has implications for the wider investigation.

Conclusion

NUH’s error did not eliminate the clinical information needed for current patient care, and the trust says no data was accessed or misused as a result. Nevertheless, the permanent loss of parts of an 11-year access history limits its ability to confirm who viewed maternity records during that period.

The trust has completed a patient safety investigation and says it has strengthened its safeguards. Police are continuing to assess the missing data in the context of the broader investigation into NUH maternity services.

Original reporting: Ars

Originally reported by Ars.