Conquest maternity unit closed 50 times last year, according to Conservatives

Pregnant women were turned away from the Conquest's maternity unit 50 times last year.

According to data from the Conservatives, the hospital trust came in the bottom three of more than 100 hospital trusts surveyed.

The Conservative Party asked 148 trusts how many times their maternity units were full and closed to new admissions in 2008 and received responses from 104.

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Only Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust and Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals Trust had more maternity closures than East Sussex Hospitals Trust (ESHT), with 97 and 91 respectively.

An average NHS trust closed its maternity unit five times during the year and 52 per cent of trusts did not shut theirs or divert expectant mothers to other sites at all.

There were a total of 75 closures reported by ESHT, 50 of which were at the Conquest and 25 at the DGH in Eastbourne.

Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, said: "Every one of these figures tells an awful story of mothers being turned away from hospital at a hugely emotional time when they are due to give birth.

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"Maternity units are deliberately being run down in some hospitals as a precursor to shutting them down altogether. This is completely against the best interests of mothers and their new babies, and denies them the choice they deserve."

A spokesman for ESHT, which runs the Conquest and the DGH, said: "There are occasions when one of our maternity units will be on divert for new admissions due either to staffing levels or high levels of demand. On those occasions new admissions are diverted to our other unit."

He said the diversion of new admissions was in line with the trust's contingency plan.

The spokesman added: "Although this is disruptive to the individuals affected, we make no apology for putting mothers and babies safety first. This is a national problem and it needs to be recognised that neighbouring NHS trusts also find it necessary to divert patients from their maternity units from time to time."

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