Almost one in three maternity units in England could close because of expected cuts in doctors’ working hours, the Conservative Party claims.

Figures released yesterday suggest that 50 out of 176 consultant-led maternity units across the country are under threat of being downgraded or closed if guidance being used in some NHS trusts is applied nationally.

Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, has admitted that the number of units staffed by doctors could be cut under European rules to limit the hours doctors spend on wards.

The European Working Time Directive is set to reduce the number of hours doctors spend on wards to 48 hours a week by August 2009.

The changes could lead to a reduced number of consultant-led maternity units because of a lack of staff.

Maternity units in Manchester, Teesside and other parts of the country have already been earmarked for radical overhauls, and more home births and deliveries in local units staffed by midwives are expected as a result.

But the plans are proving hugely unpopular, even though they have been promoted as being in the interests of patients and NHS staff. They could mean that mothers and babies at risk of complications during delivery will have to travel farther to receive specialist care rather than transferring to the nearest hospital.

The Conservatives’ estimates are based on a report issued in February by Sheila Shribman, the Government’s maternity supervisor, which explained cuts to services in West Yorkshire.

Two units at the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust each catered for about 2,500 births a year but, on their own, neither was big enough to justify the spend needed to retain specialist skills, she said.

The average consultant-led unit currently delivers an estimated 1,800 babies a year.

The Tories suggest that if other trusts across England took Ms Shribman’s recommendations as a guide, up to one in three units would close.

Other guidance being circulated by NHS organisations in the East of England in turn suggests that maternity units need to deliver at least 3,000 or even 4,000 births a year to be viable.

The Tories called on the Government to delay the implementation of the European Working Time Directive in order to forestall cuts.

Addressing the annual conference of the Royal College of Midwives in Brighton, Ms Hewitt said that recommendations for the potential closure of services in Manchester, for example, were “quite difficult and unpopular” but were good for babies and mothers.

Ms Shribman said yesterday that every major city and most rural communities in the country would have to consider the future of local maternity services in the light of the Working Time Directive.

But she denied that there was a “one size fits all” figure for the number of births a unit had that could be applied to justify closures across England.

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