The NHS is spending £350m a year to provide maternity services for foreign-born mothers, £200m more than a decade ago, the BBC has found. Immigration has raised the birth rate so fast that some units have closed, so that midwives could be moved to areas of urgent need. A unit in Ascot, Berkshire, shut for two months in 2007 because staff had to be transferred to Slough. The NHS says it is working to "build in" the extra capacity needed. Other maternity units have turned expectant mothers away because they could not cope with unprecedented increases in the local birth rate.

Full story: news.bbc.co.uk