Key facts
- Twelve birth centres, which are midwife-led maternity units, have closed in England since 2019, The Guardian reported.
- Six units have shut permanently since Labour came to power in July 2024, in Rossendale, Edgware, Melton Mowbray, Stafford and Lichfield, and Pontefract.
- Four other centres have been closed temporarily for as long as six years, and childbirth groups fear they will never reopen.
- NHS bodies in England and Wales have suspended home birth services for up to 14 months, restricting where women can give birth.
- The Royal College of Midwives said women's inability to access midwife-led care on the NHS risks them paying for private support or giving birth at home with no health professional present.
- Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, is due to publish an action plan on maternity and neonatal care in England before Christmas.
Twelve birth centres, which are midwife-led maternity units, have closed in England since 2019, according to a report by The Guardian. Six of the units have shut permanently since Labour came to power in July 2024, in Rossendale in east Lancashire, Edgware in north London, Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, Stafford and Lichfield in Staffordshire, and Pontefract in West Yorkshire.
Four other centres have been closed temporarily for as long as six years, and childbirth groups fear they will never reopen. Two more closed because the hospitals where they were based have begun to fall apart and will remain out of action for several years until new facilities are built. NHS bodies in England and Wales have also suspended home birth services for up to 14 months, restricting where women can give birth.
The report attributes the closures and suspensions to an NHS-wide shortage of midwives, a falling birthrate, the growing complexity of childbirth and a rise in caesarean sections. Campaigners say the loss of local services denies women the right to choose and forces them to travel from their home area to give birth.
Hazel Williams, chief executive of Birthrights, said: "Over the past few years we have seen shocking restrictions on women and birthing people's choices of place of birth, with more and more birth centre closures and restrictions and the option for NHS-supported home birth vastly reduced for many." She added: "These are not luxury options or nice-to-haves. This is about women and birthing people's right to choose what happens to their bodies and their birth."
The Royal College of Midwives said women's inability to access midwife-led care on the NHS risks them deciding to pay for private midwifery support or even have a baby at home with no health professional present. Hannah Leonard, the college's chief policy officer and deputy chief midwife, said: "Women have the right to choose where they give birth, but that choice is being eroded."
Tope Medupin, acting chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust, said: "For women and birthing people the loss of a local service often means longer journeys, higher costs, greater uncertainty and fewer options for care at one of the most important times in their lives." He added that longstanding workforce shortages, crumbling estates and wider pressures on maternity services remain unresolved.
The Huddersfield birth centre in Yorkshire closed in November 2020 as a temporary measure because of the Covid-19 pandemic and has not reopened. The Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS trust, which ran it, said: "No decision has been made to reopen the service and we are not able to provide a timeframe for any potential reopening." The Ingleside birth centre in Salford, which opened in 2018, has been shut since January 2022.
Midwife-led births at the Crowborough birth centre in east Sussex were halted temporarily in October 2025 because staff shortages meant it kept closing at short notice. The Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust, which runs the centre, said it had completed a review of what it would take to reopen the facility but declined to say what that would involve. Nusrat Ghani, the MP for Sussex Weald, who is campaigning for it to reopen, said the trust had broken "numerous promises" to review the practicalities of reopening the service and suggested the trust may be continuing to describe the closure as temporary to avoid the formal public consultation it would have to undertake if it were made permanent.
Gloucester hospitals trust announced that Cheltenham birth centre will reopen in February after being shut since 2022 and that home births, suspended since 2025, will resume in January. A senior NHS leader recently warned that up to 20 full-scale, consultant-led maternity units at acute hospitals in England may have to close in order to keep women and babies safe. NHS bosses in Norfolk proposed closing the maternity units at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in King's Lynn and James Paget hospital in Great Yarmouth and centralising care for the county at the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital in Norwich. The maternity unit at North Devon district hospital in Barnstaple has been closed for months, including its home birth service, due to lack of staff.
Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, is due to publish an action plan to address the crisis in maternity and neonatal care in England before Christmas. The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond directly to the closures. A spokesperson said: "Every woman and baby deserves safe, compassionate maternity and neonatal care and the health secretary has made it a personal priority to improve standards across the board. Strengthening the workforce is central to that goal and there are now a record number of midwives working in the NHS, with over 600 added in the past year."