Mum was sent photo of dead baby: NHS trust’s mortuary failings explained
Natalie’s son Kouper died of respiratory complications in July 2019, when he was just 24 hours old, in a Moses basket in the family’s living room.
He was discharged from Nottingham City Hospital approximately 14 hours after he was born.
The family’s trauma was exacerbated when the letter arrived without warning in February 2020.
“The letter said ‘dear Doctor’ on it, so it wasn’t actually addressed to me,” Natalie said.
“There was a detailed list of Kouper’s death, including the cost of incubation tubes, the cost of sending an ambulance and an air ambulance.
“The last item on the list was that it cost the NHS £57 for a nurse to come and tell me my son had died.
“On the disk was all the post-mortem footage of him being placed on a mortuary slab. That was something I never, ever dreamed of seeing. That was the last thing I saw of him.”
Natalie remembered calling the number on the letter after opening it.
“About an hour after I contacted them, someone from the hospital came to my door and asked for the documents back. I refused to give them back,” he said.
“Then they wrote to me and said that if I refused to send it back, they would take it to court because I was withholding information that was legally theirs.”
Natalie said she refused to hand over the documents and that she still had them. NUH was asked about this incident, but the foundation did not respond directly.
When Natalie later raised the issue with new NUH chief executive Anthony May in 2022, she told the family that, following an investigation, the letter had been sent as part of a subject access request (SAR), a formal right under data protection laws that allows you to ask an organization whether it is using or keeping your personal information.
Ockenden’s investigation team also investigated what happened and said the documents were sent to Natalie in response to the SAR.
A letter sent to the Needhams stated that “disclosure of these items is completely unacceptable.”
The report stated, “It is incomprehensible that such sensational images and financial information should be sent to a grieving family who has already gone through a very traumatic experience.”
However, Natalie said she did not believe the letter came as part of the SAR and added that she was still seeking answers.
“Someone did this. You can’t write a letter with someone’s address on it and send it to the foundation. I feel like this was done on purpose,” he said.
In response, NUH chief nurse Tracy Pilcher said: “I would like to apologize to Natalie Needham and her family for any errors we made in handling the subject access request (SAR).
“Following this incident, a comprehensive investigation was conducted into the images shared with Natalie after she received the SAR and identified areas where our quality assurance processes fell below the standards we expected.
“Measures have been taken to strengthen these processes and reduce the risk of such an event occurring again.”
