Actor Jason Isaacs has been cast to lead a new scripted television series about the UK's maternity deaths scandal, produced by Cuba Pictures, part of Vice Studios. The drama is based on the award-winning documentary "Maternity: Broken Trust" and will be directed by Jim Loach. It matters because it dramatises one of the most damning failures in NHS history, potentially bringing wider public attention to systemic shortcomings in maternity care.

Isaacs will play Dr Jack Hawkins, whose daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016 following alleged failures at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. He and his wife Sarah pursued a years-long campaign for answers that helped trigger the landmark Ockenden report, which found that more than 500 mothers and babies died or were harmed by inadequate care over a 13-year period at a single trust. Cuba Pictures has secured the rights to adapt the story, with the Hawkinses saying a drama can reach beneath the story in a way news coverage cannot.