The number of maternity beds available for expectant mothers has fallen by almost 20 per cent over the past decade, despite an increase in the number of births on hospital wards.

There are now about 1,900 fewer hospital beds for women giving birth than there were in 1997 in England, according to official figures obtained by the Conservatives and released yesterday.

Ten years ago there were 10,781 maternity beds, but in 2005-06 there were 8,883. The 18 per cent reduction cannot be explained by a small increase in the number of home births in recent years, as the number of hospital deliveries also rose; from 585,000 in 1997-98 to 593,400 in 2005-06. The statistics lend weight to claims that maternity services are becoming dangerously overstretched as they fail to keep pace with rising birth rates and an ever-increasing number of Caesarean sections.

Ministers have already admitted that the number of midwives fell last year – now, for the first time, the national reduction in maternity beds during the past decade is revealed.

The Government was forced to deny that there was a maternity crisis this year when the National Patient Safety Agency examined 60,000 maternity ward errors in a three-year period ending last year. It found that 17,676 women had been injured, about 1,000 of them seriously.

Eight out of ten heads of midwifery say that they do not have sufficient staff to cope, according to the Royal College of Midwives. “We have seen too many service cuts, too many midwives lost, and too many mothers and babies getting a service that should shame the fourth richest country in the world,” Dame Karlene Davis, the RCM’s General Secretary, said this year.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, released the figures as he promised a “bare-knuckle fight” to save local district hospitals threatened with closure because of NHS reorganisation. “There are 40 maternity units currently under threat and 90 accident and emergency units under threat,” Mr Cameron said on a visit to a hospital in his constituency yesterday.

The Conservatives have chosen to take the battle over the future of local district hospitals to Gordon Brown after the man he selected to review the NHS suggested that many district hospitals should close.

“We need fewer, more advanced and more specialised hospitals,” concluded Professor Ara Darzi after an investigation into London’s healthcare that he is now carrying out nationally.

A spokesman for the Department of Health denied that the review would lead to “wholesale closures of district hospitals”.

“The NHS is also looking at the safest and most effective way of delivering care,” he said. “This does not mean wholesale closures of district general hospitals but it does mean that NHS clinicians and managers need to work with local communities to decide on the best organisation of services for patients in their areas.

“Any decision on significant changes to services will be made only after full public consultation with local people.”

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