NHS Maternity Services

Anna Sabine Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ian Roome]

I agree with the right hon. and learned Member and thank him for those comments. I hope the Minister has made a note of them.

It is a 53-mile drive from North Devon district hospital to the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital. We are talking about a catchment area larger than Greater Manchester without an open maternity unit.

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

On the point about rurality, I was alarmed earlier in the week to hear NHS chiefs talking about the fact that in order to consolidate services they may have to cut rural and coastal maternity services further. In Frome and East Somerset I have mothers who routinely travel over an hour to access maternity services. I know they are not the distances that my hon. Friend and other colleagues are talking about, but efficiency of maternity services should not come at the cost of women living in rural areas simply being able to access maternity care in a safe and timely way. Does he agree?

[Ian Roome]

I agree with my hon. Friend. That is precisely the point I am making about rurality and the remote services that many people experience. Many of my constituents would not reach the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital inside two hours. If a hospital shuts down in London, neighbouring units can absorb some extra workload without a dramatically heightened risk to mother or baby, but in this case, no neighbouring hospital exists. Most of the road route is not even a dual carriageway. In terms of journey time, it is like announcing that women cannot have their babies delivered in London and that mothers going into labour must be diverted to Bristol.

It is little wonder that would-be parents across northern Devon and Cornwall are terrified at the extra pressure of getting to Exeter. I have recently been able to get the trust to agree to move some of the triage back to Barnstaple for women over 37 weeks with suspected broken waters, but many of those warned to travel early to Exeter have ended up being sent back to North Devon—a round trip that takes many hours.

Official trust figures record no “incidents” and fewer than five “births before arrival” over the past nine weeks. Will the Minister tell me the NHS’s official view on that? Is it credible to claim that a baby born in an ambulance or non-medical area of a hospital should not qualify as an “incident”? The Daily Mirror has reported that two babies have been born in the back of ambulances, two in accident and emergency, and one in a hospital reception, although I have not been able to verify that. The trust is clear that it reviews every one of those “births before arrival” carefully, and cannot give a more exact breakdown without breaching patient confidentiality. However, it also insists that:

“There is a difference between the NHS definition and a patient’s definition of experiencing an “event-free” birth.”

I am a father and a grandfather who remembers those tense few hours well, and I understand why trust senior management feel the need to be dispassionate about a baby arriving early, but when expectant mothers are travelling so far by ambulance, that kind of statement surely stretches the credibility of NHS guidance to breaking point.