Sackings and disciplinary action
Eleven NHS staff have been sacked for improperly accessing the medical records of victims of the Nottingham stabbings, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) confirmed on Thursday.
A further 14 members of staff have faced disciplinary action after the trust began investigating the breach in early 2025. The actions taken so far include two first written warnings, 12 final written warnings and the 11 dismissals, the trust said. It added that further investigations are ongoing.
Those caught up in the probe include doctors, nurses, registered medical professionals and administrative and clerical colleagues. The trust said it would now consult with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and the General Medical Council (GMC), both of which have the power to strike staff off medical registers. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and Nottinghamshire Police have also been informed.
Scale of misconduct
Emma Webber, whose 19-year-old son Barnaby Webber was killed in the attacks, described the scale of the misconduct as “shocking”. In a statement to the Press Association, she revealed that 150 members of staff had accessed the records. “What is more shocking is the scale of misconduct – 150 members of staff accessed the records,” she said. “The process is not yet complete so we anticipate these numbers to escalate considerably.”
The families have disputed the trust’s finding that 48 staff had legitimate access. “The number is far too high,” Mrs Webber said. “The rationale given for legitimacy does not stack up and we are formally challenging this in order to scrutinise properly.” She described the situation as “heartbreaking”, adding: “It’s heartbreaking that on top of our tragic loss, we’ve also had to face such appalling additional failures by members of staff who should know better.”
The trust’s investigation also covers the files of surviving victims – Wayne Birkett, Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski – who were injured when Valdo Calocane drove a stolen van into them during the attacks.
Victims and the ongoing inquiry
The attack took place on 13 June 2023, when Valdo Calocane fatally stabbed university students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates. Calocane, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and was diagnosed in 2020, had been sectioned four times in less than two years. A doctor had warned three years before the attacks that his mental illness was so severe he could kill someone.
In November 2023, Calocane pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to three counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, and three counts of attempted murder. His pleas were accepted by the prosecution. On 25 January 2024, he was sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court to an indefinite hospital order, meaning he will likely be detained for the rest of his life in a high-security hospital. The sentencing was later referred to the Court of Appeal for review under the unduly lenient sentence scheme.
A public statutory inquiry into the killings, chaired by Her Honour Deborah Taylor, is ongoing. Its terms of reference include examining the management of Calocane’s risk to others, the actions of various agencies, and a timeline of incidents of unauthorised access to information by public servants. The families have called for the inquiry to expose “systemic neglect” and hold those who “neglected their jobs” to account. They are also challenging the legal framework that led to Calocane receiving a hospital order instead of a life sentence.
The case has been further complicated by other data breaches. Eleven members of Nottinghamshire Police staff viewed case material without legitimate reason, leading to disciplinary actions for some, and a special constable was sacked for viewing bodycam footage of the aftermath. Separately, NUH is at the centre of a major maternity inquiry, which has resulted in a corporate manslaughter investigation and a £1.6m fine for the trust.
An independent review into Calocane’s NHS care found a “catalogue of failings”, including a “series of errors and misjudgments” and “systemic issues with community mental health care”. The review noted that the voice of Calocane’s family “was not effectively considered to support the dynamic evaluation of risk”. Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which treated Calocane, has faced further scrutiny from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Family and trust statements
The families of the victims have previously described the accessing of records as “distressing and traumatic”, “gross invasions of privacy and civil liberty” and “sickening, gross and inexcusable voyeurism”. Grace O’Malley-Kumar’s brother said Calocane’s actions had caused him to lose his faith, describing him as “animalistic and calculated”. Barnaby Webber’s father shared the memory of seeing his son in hospital, and Ian Coates’s son noted that his father was close to retirement and had his future stolen.
Dr Manjeet Shehmar, medical director at NUH, apologised directly to the families. “The families of Ian, Grace and Barnaby have had to endure much pain and heartache, and I am truly sorry that the actions of some of our staff have added to that,” she said. “To access the medical records of our patients without a legitimate reason is totally unacceptable and we are doing all we can to identify where and how that has happened.”
She added: “I hope that the families, staff and our communities feel reassured by the outcomes so far, that we are taking this seriously and will continue to do so. By accessing records inappropriately, staff are damaging the valuable contributions made by those colleagues providing care for those patients. In those cases where it does happen, I hope that this is a very clear reminder that we will take appropriate action.”
Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, welcomed the disciplinary action, describing the staff’s actions as “cruel, selfish” and a “serious violation”. She said: “It is vital that NUH takes action to protect patient records from this kind of misuse and that all staff understand that looking up a patient’s records without proper, lawful justification is a serious violation.”
Mrs Webber ended her statement with a direct plea: “I’d ask them all to consider how they would feel if it was their child or father.”
