More than four in ten maternity units in England offer poor or below average care, a report by the healthcare watchdog concludes today.

A similar proportion of hospitals fail to carry out proper ultrasound scans to check for problems affecting developing babies in the womb, the Healthcare Commission said.

Official guidelines recommend that at least 11 checks should take place, including studying the baby’s heart function, length of spine and the development of its face and lips.Yet the report found that only 61 per cent of scans performed by NHS trusts include all such checks recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). In addition, only 11 per cent of trusts were meeting screening standards for Down’s syndrome, which were updated by NICE in April 2007. The remaining women could be receiving insufficient information about the health of their child before birth, the Commission said, potentially putting themselves and their babies at risk.

Critics said that mothers and babies were not getting the high quality care they deserve.

Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, announced extra funding for maternity services that will increase over the next three years to reach an additional £122 million annually.

The study found that 63 out of 148 (42 per cent) trusts with full maternity services in England were performing poorly or fairly. Poor performance and regional variations in care are largely linked to staffing shortages, the watchdog suggests. The commission ranked 21 per cent of trusts as “least well performing”, 22 per cent “fair performing”, 26 per cent “best performing” and 32 per cent “better performing”.A survey of more than 26,000 mothers was included as well as data from NHS trusts. The Commission gave warning that some trusts had been unable to supply full information.

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “It is simply unacceptable that one in five maternity units is putting mothers and babies at risk.” Dame Karlene Davis, of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), said that Britain remained among the safest countries in the world in which to give birth.

Findings

48% of the trusts performed poorly or fairly

1 in 3 women did not have a named midwife

10,000 midwives needed to improve quality of care

Source: Healthcare Commission

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