A “human error” in the IT department led to Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) losing data from maternity records over an 11-year span.
The data loss occurred on August 18, the English hospitals announced in a blog post on Monday spotted by The Register. The blog said the problem is “the result of human error” during routine technical work while “creating a copy of a radiotherapy database for reporting purposes.”
The process used a set of pre-written computer instructions that had previously been used for a different hospital system. A setting that should have been changed before the process was run was missed. As a result, the process was carried out on a maternity database instead of the radiotherapy database, causing the maternity records database to be overwritten.
The overwritten database held data from NUH’s previous maternity database, which included maternity records for women and babies who received care from NUH from September 2011 to November 2022.
NUH has been unable to retrieve some of the data, the blog said:
… we have not been able to restore the complete history showing who viewed maternity records during this period. As a result, in most cases, we may be unable to confirm whether a maternity record was viewed by a particular person between September 2011 and November 2022.
NUH said that it escalated the problem “within minutes of being identified” and “worked with external specialists and reviewed other sources of information to recover as much data as possible.” It was able to restore patient care-related data, including “notes, observations, test results, and other information recorded as part of a person’s care.”
NUH noted that the data loss doesn’t impact current patient care.
“No patient information was accessed or used inappropriately as a result of this incident,” the blog said.
In a statement accompanying the blog, Andy Callow, NUH’s chief digital and information officer, said NUH completed a patient safety incident investigation and has taken unspecified steps to strengthen “technical controls and processes to help prevent a similar incident from happening again.”
“I am sorry for the concern and distress this incident may cause to women and families affected,” he said.
Police investigating
The announcement comes as NUH faces a broader police investigation into allegations that over 500 mothers and babies endured “potentially avoidable” harm or died due to systemic failings within NUH, per a review of the hospitals’ maternity department released in June and led by a senior midwife. These reported failings include understaffing, undertrained employees, and failure to listen to parental concerns, the BBC reported at the time.
Also, in June 2025, a local police investigation concluded that a file with records for hundreds of maternity care patients at NUH was likely erased “intentionally or maliciously.” NUH recovered that data days after its deletion.
Nottinghamshire Police is investigating whether the most recent data loss impacts the larger case concerning the maternity care-related injuries and deaths and if criminal charges will be filed, the BBC reported this week. The police are also trying to retrieve the lost data.
“At present, no crime has been identified,” deputy chief constable Rob Griffin, one of the investigation’s leaders, said, per the BBC.
Nottingham Maternity Family Group, a group representing some of the families affected by the broader investigation, said that the data loss reported this week is “extremely unnerving.”
“Families who have already endured preventable harm, injury, and bereavement should not also have to worry about the security of the records of their experiences,” the group said in a statement, per the BBC.
Scharon HardingSenior Technology Reporter
Scharon HardingSenior Technology Reporter
Scharon is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer gadgets and services. She’s been reporting on technology for over 10 years, with bylines at Tom’s Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK.
Source: arstechnica.com
