£350m a Year –- That’s What you Pay for Foreign Births in the NHS

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The NHS is spending £350m a year to provide maternity services for foreign-born mothers, £200m more than a decade ago. Immigration has raised the birth rate so fast that some units have closed, so that midwives could be moved to areas of urgent need.A unit in Ascot, Berkshire, shut for two months in 2007 because staff had to be transferred to Slough. The NHS says it is working to “build in” the extra capacity needed.

Other maternity units have turned expectant mothers away because they could not cope with unprecedented increases in the local birth rate. When Labour came to power, the NHS spent around £1bn a year on maternity services, with one baby in eight delivered to a foreign-born mother.

Ten years on, spending has risen to £1.6bn, with almost one baby in four delivered to a mother born overseas. While the number of babies born to British mothers has fallen by 44,000 a year since the mid-1990s, the figure for babies born to foreign mothers has risen by 64,000 - a 77% increase which has pushed the overall birth-rate to its highest level for 26 years.

In central London, where six out of every 10 babies born has a foreign-born mother, senior consultants and health managers blame the lack of resources to deal with the pressures of migration for unacceptably poor standards.

Professor Philip Steer, editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said: “The Department of Health has been taken by surprise. The demographic change, the sheer numbers, has in some areas increased very substantially without there being any forward planning really to allow for that.”

The statistics go on to show that 11,000 more babies were born to a mother from the Indian sub-continent, while 8,000 extra babies had mothers born in Africa.

Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot closed its maternity unit for two months in the summer of 2007 because of an “unprecedented increase” in the local birth rate.

Midwives were moved to Wexham Park Hospital, closer to the pressure-point of Slough where in the last year staff have witnessed an extra 150 babies delivered to foreign-born mothers.

In a statement at the time, local health officials said they “reluctantly took the decision to temporarily close the delivery suite at Heatherwood Hospital for two months so we can ensure we offer mothers-to-be a safe, high quality service at Wexham Park Hospital.” The knock-on effect was experienced in nearby Reading where the local maternity unit could not cope with the extra demand.

LIVE BIRTHS BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH OF MOTHER

Births by British-born mothers down 44,000

Births by all foreign-born mothers up 64,000

Births by mothers born in Eastern Europe up 15,000

Births by mothers born in Indian subcontinent up 11,000

Births by mothers born in Africa up 8,000