The NHS is spending more than £350 million a year providing maternity services for mothers from overseas, it was reported last night.

Record levels of immigration have pushed the cost up by £200 million in the past ten years, according to analysis by the BBC. Experts say that the Department of Health has been “caught by surprise” by the rising birthrate, with some maternity wards having to close their doors to expectant mothers to cope with demand.

Spending on maternity services has risen from £1 billion a year to £1.6 billion since Labour came to power. A decade ago one baby in eight (12.8 per cent) was delivered to a foreign-born mother, but figures from the Office of National Statistics show that in 2006 there were 154,000 births to foreign-born women, making up about one in five (21.9 per cent) of total births. The number of births to European-born mothers other than from the UK and Ireland rose by 87 per cent between 2001 and 2006, to 27,000 – almost 4 per cent of UK births.

While the number of babies born to British mothers has fallen by 44,000 a year since the mid-Nineties, the figure for babies born to foreign mothers has risen by 64,000, the BBC reported. This 77 per cent increase has pushed the overall birthrate to its highest level for 26 years.

Philip Steer, editor of The British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, commented: “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 planning really to allow for that.”

In London the majority of births last year – six out of ten – were to foreign-born women. In some boroughs, such as Newham, this proportion rose to as many as three quarters of births.

Trish Morris-Thompson, chief nurse for NHS London, told The Ten O’Clock News: “The timing of the impact is much quicker than we had anticipated. We’re working with our commissioners and our maternity providers now to ensure that we’re building in the capacity they need.”

Richard Warren, honorary secretary at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said that foreign-born mothers were putting pressure on already busy services, although he emphasised that the services remained safe.

The Department of Health said: “We have this year made improving maternity services a priority for the NHS, which is why the Secretary of State announced last week extra funding for maternity services that will increase over the next three years to reach an additional £122 million annually.” This is part of funding already allocated to the NHS, however.

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