Mother sent photo of dead baby: NHS trust’s mortuary flaws explained.

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

He was discharged from Nottingham City Hospital 14 hours after his birth.

When the letter arrived without warning in February 2020, the family’s anxiety grew.

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

“There was a full breakdown of Cooper’s death, including the cost of the tubes, the ambulance and the air ambulance.

“The last thing on the list was when a nurse came and told me my baby had died, it cost the NHS £57.

“On the disk, he had all the footage on the mortuary floor after his death. That’s something I never thought I’d have to see. That’s the last thing I saw of him.”

Natalie remembers calling after opening the number on the letter.

“Within an hour of talking to them, someone from the hospital was at my door asking me to return the paper and I wouldn’t give it to them,” she said.

“Then they wrote me a letter and told me that if I didn’t send it back, they would file a lawsuit because I had their real information.”

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

When Natalie raised the issue with new NUH chief executive Anthony May in 2022, she told the family the letter was sent as a Subject Access Request (SAR) after an investigation – a formal right under data protection laws that allows you to ask an organization if they are using or storing your personal data.

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

“Disclosure of these items is absolutely unacceptable in any way,” a letter to the Needhams said.

“It is incomprehensible to send such graphic images and financial information to a grieving family in an already traumatic situation,” he concluded.

But Natalie says she doesn’t believe the letter came as a SAR, and is still looking for answers.

“Someone did that. You don’t type a letter with someone’s address on it, put it in a trust and they don’t send it. I feel like it was done on purpose,” she said.

In response, Tracey Pilcher, NUH’s chief nurse, said: “I would like to apologize to Natalie Needham and her family for the mistakes we made in handling her SAR.

“Following this incident, a thorough review of the images shared with Natalie after she received the SAR identified areas where our quality assurance process fell below our expectations.

“Steps have been taken to strengthen these procedures and reduce the likelihood of such an incident occurring again.”