Two men, aged 55 and 59, were arrested on 22 June 2026 on suspicion of Misconduct in a Public Office in connection with operating practices within the mortuary service at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), Nottinghamshire Police announced.

The arrests fall under Operation Perth, Nottinghamshire Police's dedicated investigation into NUH's mortuary function. Misconduct in a Public Office is a common law offence carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. It applies when a public official wilfully neglects their duty or acts in a way that breaches public trust to a serious degree. The threshold for arrest is high, which means moving against two individuals at this stage signals the police consider the allegation substantial.

NUH has faced regulatory and public scrutiny for years. The trust became widely known nationally following an independent maternity review launched in September 2022 under Donna Ockenden, the same investigator who produced the landmark report into maternity failures at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust — published by the government in March 2022. Ockenden was subsequently appointed by Health Secretary Wes Streeting in March 2026 to lead a similar review at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Ockenden has effectively become the government's principal instrument for investigating systemic maternity problems across the NHS.

The mortuary arrests are separate from the maternity review, but they occur within the same institutional context: a trust that has faced prolonged questions about governance and patient safety across multiple service areas. For those tracking NHS accountability, the significance lies in the fact that NUH is now under scrutiny from multiple angles — spanning clinical care and what happens to patients after death.

Misconduct in a Public Office charges in NHS mortuary contexts are rare but not unprecedented. The offence has been used in cases involving inappropriate handling of human remains, unauthorised post-mortem procedures, or the removal of tissue without consent — conduct that would also breach the Human Tissue Act 2004. Whether such considerations apply here has not been stated by police. For now, two men have been arrested; charges, if any, will be determined by the Crown Prosecution Service following investigation.

Operation Perth is a named, dedicated operation, suggesting the inquiry involves sufficient scope and complexity to justify sustained resourcing. Named operations of this type within UK policing typically involve multiple investigators, structured evidence-gathering, and coordination with NHS England, the Care Quality Commission, or the Human Tissue Authority depending on the alleged conduct. The public naming also signals that further updates are expected—arrests of this kind rarely appear in isolation.

For NUH, the immediate consequences likely include internal HR processes running parallel to the police investigation, potential reporting obligations to the CQC under the duty of candour framework, and pressure on the trust's board to commission or accelerate an independent review of mortuary governance. Whether NHS England intervenes depends on the CQC's current regulatory position on the trust.

Mortuary services operate at the intersection of clinical governance, human tissue regulation, and coroner jurisdiction—a zone where oversight has historically been fragmented. The Human Tissue Authority licenses mortuary facilities, the CQC inspects trusts, and coroners retain judicial interest in referred deaths. That structure can create accountability gaps, particularly in services operating largely out of public view. Whether this case reveals one of those gaps, or reflects individual misconduct within an otherwise sound system, is what Operation Perth is investigating.