NHS Midwives Used 'FOH' Acronym; Mandelson Files Released

The day opened on a damning portrait of NHS care. A BBC Panorama investigation revealed that midwives at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust had written the offensive acronym "FOH" on whiteboards beside heavily pregnant women's names to signal they wanted them gone, and that staff were told "don't be too kind, she'll keep coming back." The trust is at the centre of the largest maternity inquiry in NHS history, led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden and due to report on 24 June, examining the care of about 2,500 families between 2012 and 2025, including stillbirths and neonatal and maternal deaths. Chief executive Anthony May said the trust must "take accountability."

Westminster faced its own reckoning. The government published more than 1,000 pages of files on Peter Mandelson's brief stint as ambassador to Washington, including messages in which he called No 10 "beleaguered and bereft" and disparaged Sir Keir Starmer's leadership. The documents showed Mandelson had been approved despite failing security checks -- Foreign Office staff advised him to send a "handful of names" to vetting officers to appear thorough -- fuelling blame-trading between Downing Street and civil servants. Mandelson, 72, was sacked in September 2025 over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and briefly arrested in February on suspicion of passing sensitive information to the financier; he has not been charged.

Other failures of the state drew scrutiny. The Windrush commissioner, Clive Foster, told MPs that nearly six in ten applicants to the compensation scheme receive no payout, and urged funded legal support, likening it to the Post Office Horizon and infected-blood redress schemes; the scheme has paid about 127 million pounds to 3,764 claimants since 2019 amid complaints of delays and low offers. Defence Secretary John Healey told the Commons that a British Army soldier had been killed in a training accident in northern Iraq on May 31, where UK forces serve in the coalition against Daesh; the family had asked for time before further details are released.

And the family of Michaela Hall, murdered by her partner Lee Kendall in 2021, launched a Human Rights Act challenge against Devon and Cornwall Police and the Probation Service, alleging she had been rated only "medium risk" despite 34 pieces of intelligence on the offender's history of domestic abuse.