Women in labour and new-born babies in urgent need of specialist care are being rushed from Bradford Royal Infirmary to hospitals across West Yorkshire because it cannot cope with the demand.

And today doctors warned the crisis - caused by a shortage of special care cots - was likely to get worse.

Now health chiefs are coming under pressure to come up with cash to expand specialist neonatal care at the Bradford hospital which has one of the busiest maternity units in the country.

There were 51 cases last year when doctors were forced to make transfers to hospitals in Airedale, Leeds, Huddersfield, and Halifax because the 28-cot special baby care unit at the infirmary was full.

In about half the cases the mum-to-be was in labour when medical teams at the infirmary had to tell her she was being rushed to another hospital because there was no room in Bradford for the specialist care her baby was likely to need from birth.

One mum Nicola Cotson, 29, of Shipley, was transferred by ambulance to St James's Hospital, Leeds, when she went into labour last month at 28 weeks with twins.

She had a Caesarean section and her two boys William and Matthew were taken to neonatal intensive care.

Only ten days after their birth was there room in Bradford for the two who spent another five days receiving round-the-clock treatment and are still now being cared for in the unit.

"It was frightening really being in labour on my own and going somewhere strange and probably because of the drugs they had given me I was worried it wasn't just the beds but there was some other reason why I was being whisked off to St James's," she said.

Dr Chris Day, consultant neonatal paediatrician at the infirmary, said: "It is a source of great frustration to the neonatal unit and the maternity service.

"We could manage the delivery and give the babies continuing care but we have to send them off because there is nowhere to put them.

"Mums have been looked after through often long and difficult pregnancies only to find when the baby is born it happens elsewhere and it's frustrating professionally for us because it's clearly not an ideal way of managing the circumstances around birth.

"It's obviously a problem for mums who leave the surroundings they are familiar with and causes a great deal of difficulty from the families point of view.

"It is an increasing problem and it will get worse because of the improvements in technology which means more babies are surviving with increasingly complex conditions."

Dr Day said one option lay in creating four extra special care cots but a longer term solution would mean opening a new transitional care ward for mothers and up to 12 babies who needed extra attention beyond the normal post-natal ward. A neo-natal cot can cost up to £1,000 a day to run.

Marsha Singh, MP for Bradford West, said he was concerned about the number of transfers especially those taking place while the women were in labour.

"I imagine it to be a very traumatic experience for parents," he said.

Barrie Scholfield, chairman of Bradford Community Health Council, backed calls for extra funding. He said neonatal care was just one of a number of health service priorities which needed addressing.

Mrs Cotson has backed the calls for extra investment.

"I just never thought I would give birth anywhere else," she said.

Dr Kathy Marfell, consultant in public health at Bradford Health Authority, said an increasing workload was a feature of neonatal units across the country due to the success in treating babies born earlier and earlier.

Talks between health authorities across West Yorkshire will be held next week to examine how provision could be improved and Bradford, with one of the biggest maternity units in the country, was well placed to get extra resources.

Intensive care beds were expensive to maintain and it was a waste of resources to run a service with beds lying empty most of the time.

"The difficulty always is getting that balance right," she said.

How hospitals compare

Bradford Royal Infirmary

6,000 births a year; 500 babies use neonatal unit which has 28 cots including six intensive care cots; 51 transfers to other hospitals.

Airedale General Hospital

2,200 births a year; 300 babies admitted to the special care baby unit which has cots for 16 babies and three intensive care cots; no transfers in last six months.

Leeds General Infirmary

4,500 births a year; ten cots in the neonatal intensive care unit with a 70-80 per cent occupancy rate and ten cots in the special care unit with a 60-80 per cent occupancy rate; because LGI is a regional referral unit it does not transfer cases.

St James's, Leeds

4,500 births a year; 247 babies using neonatal intensive care; St James's is also a regional referral unit.

Halifax General Hospital

2,400 births a year; 250 children using the neonatal unit; no transfers other than those for specialist clinical reasons.

Huddersfield Royal Infirmary

2,800 births a year; 270 using the neonatal unit; three transfers.

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