Women in labour are being turned away from overstretched maternity units amid Britain’s continuing baby boom.
Hospitals across the country closed their doors to expectant mothers on more than 350 occasions last year because they could not cope with demand, sending women to other units to give birth.
Reasons for the temporary closure or suspension of services included shortages of midwives or beds, despite government pledges to improve staffing levels and choice for women giving birth. Maternity wards in at least six out of ten regions in England closed at some point in 2008-09, figures reported to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the independent regulator, showed yesterday.
The NMC warned that staffing levels of midwives were “still playing catch-up” with the rising birthrate, now higher than it has been for more than 36 years. Increasing numbers of complicated births, because of problems such as obesity, substance abuse, domestic violence or mothers not speaking English as a first language also placed a strain on services, the watchdog said.
The Government promised in 2007 that all pregnant women in England would have a choice of where to give birth. Campaigners said that in many cases this choice could not be guaranteed and that it could be terrifying for women to be turned away at the last minute by a hospital or maternity unit.
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Reports submitted to the NMC by Local Supervising Authorities, which oversee the work of all registered midwives, found that units in the North West of England closed on more than 219 occasions last year.
There were also 60 closures or suspensions in the East of England, 46 suspensions or attempted suspensions in London, 15 in the South East and 13 in the East Midlands.
Jay Francis, of the National Childbirth Trust, said that the Government’s choice guarantees were “clearly not being met”. “It is terrifying for a woman to go into her chosen unit in labour and to find the doors are closed,” she said. “While temporary closures may occasionally be necessary on the grounds of safety these should be rare events. Women rely on maternity services being open for them 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Anne Milton, the Conservative health spokeswoman, said: “The Government have not adequately planned for the rising birthrate. The Government claims it has increased maternity funding yet it appears that more units are closing.”
The Department of Health said that funding for maternity services had almost doubled since 1997 to just under £2 billion and that it had set a goal to recruit an extra 4,000 midwives by 2012.
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Case Study
When Kate Goode, 31, went into labour at 35 weeks at 10pm on July 3, 2006, her husband Jack took her to The Grange Birth Centre in Petersfield.
The couple knew that the centre was due to close the following day, but it was officially still open. Nurses advised them to go home and relax but when Mrs Goode returned five hours later, 7cm to 8cm dilated, she was turned away.
Because she was a first-time mother, they were told to drive 20 miles to St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth, where her son Jacob was born three hours later. The Grange reopened in 2007 but was too understaffed to be the choice when her daughter, Maisie, was born a year later.