Mum was sent photo of dead baby: NHS trust’s mortuary failings explained

Natalie’s son Kouper died of respiratory complications in July 2019 in a Moses basket in the family living room, when he was just 24 hours old.

He had been discharged from Nottingham City Hospital about 14 hours after he was born.

The family’s trauma was worsened when the letter arrived, without warning, in February 2020.

“The letter itself read ‘dear Doctor’, so it wasn’t actually written to me,” Natalie said.

“There was a full itemised list of Kouper’s death, including how much it cost for the 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 that my son was dead.

“On the disc was all his post-mortem images where he was put upon a mortuary slab. It’s something I never, ever imagined having to see. That’s the last thing I saw of him.”

Natalie recalled calling the number on the letter after she opened it.

“Within about an hour of me contacting them, somebody was at my door from the hospital asking for the paperwork back. I refused to give it to them,” she said.

“They then wrote to me, and said that if I refused to send it back, they’d issue court proceedings because I was withholding information that was rightfully theirs.”

Natalie said she refused to hand over the documents, and still has them. NUH was asked about this incident, but the trust did not directly respond.

When Natalie later raised the case with the new NUH chief executive Anthony May in 2022, he told the family that after an investigation, the letter was sent as part of her subject access request (SAR) – a formal right under data protection laws that allows you to ask an organisation if they are using or storing your personal information.

Ockenden’s review team also investigated what happened, and said the documents were sent to Natalie in response to her SAR.

A letter to the Needhams said “the disclosure of these items was completely unacceptable in every way”.

“The sending of such graphic images and financial information to a grieving family who have already been through a very traumatic experience is incomprehensible,” it concluded.

But Natalie said she did not believe the letter came as part of her SAR, and added she was still searching for answers.

“Somebody has done that. You don’t type up a letter with someone’s address on it, address it to the trust and send it. I feel like it was done on purpose,” she said.

In response, Tracy Pilcher, NUH chief nurse, said: “I would like to apologise to Natalie Needham and her family for the mistakes we made in handling her subject access request (SAR).

“Following this incident, a thorough investigation was conducted into the images that were shared with Natalie after she received her SAR, which identified areas where our quality assurance processes fell short of the standards we expect.

“Actions have been taken to strengthen these processes and reduce the risk of such an incident happening again.”