Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust is under fire following an inspection that found bodies in 'advanced deterioration' due to inadequate mortuary care. The Human Tissue Authority (HTA) identified multiple shortfalls in its services at the Queen's Medical Centre and City Hospital.
During an unannounced inspection, the HTA discovered three critical, six major, and one minor shortfall against its standards. A key issue identified was a lack of adequate freezer space, which led to some bodies being stored in refrigerated areas instead. This resulted in eight bodies showing signs of advanced deterioration because they were not transferred to a freezer promptly.
Failures in After-Death Care
The problems in after-death care at the trust came to public attention following the case of Harriet Hawkins, who was stillborn at NUH in 2016. Her parents discovered her body had decomposed significantly, necessitating triple bagging for her funeral. This incident prompted an independent investigation that examined the after-death care provided to 16 other babies and one mother.
The investigation uncovered instances where early gestation babies were disposed of as clinical waste, the wrong baby was released to funeral directors, and a deceased mother's body had deteriorated to such an extent that her family was advised not to view her before her funeral. Donna Ockenden, leading the independent maternity review, noted in her report that the review found "evidence of recurring examples of failure to protect the dignity of the deceased… including inadequate arrangements for undertaking paediatric post-mortems."
Substandard Post-Mortem Practices
Further compounding the concerns, some baby post-mortem examinations were reportedly conducted in a lab lacking adequate ventilation, rather than in a dedicated post-mortem suite. The HTA also found that support staff involved in these procedures had not received proper training in mortuary care.
An accompanying audit revealed that more than half of the 145 recorded incidents that should have been reported to the regulator were not escalated. The HTA's inspection of NUH mortuaries specifically found 10 shortfalls in total. The findings highlight significant regulatory and operational failures within the trust's mortuary services.