Cash will be used to upgrade delivery suites and install new equipment

Northwick Park Hospital will receive a £168,000 grant to improve its maternity services, it has been announced today.

Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter has revealed that the hospital in Watford Road, Sudbury, will be given extra funding from a £25million pot being injected into maternity services.

The money will be used to improve parents’ birth experience by providing a more comfortable environment to women, partners, babies and their family during labour.

The transformation project for the unit will create a larger waiting area with toilets, a new pool on the delivery and the installation of a transitional care unit.

The midwifery-led unit will also be upgraded to include new birth position equipment and a support room on postnatal ward for multiple births and the bereavement room will be redecorated.

Dr Poulter said: “A new arrival in the family is a joyous time but it can present a real challenge for mums and families, particularly those experiencing it for the first time.

“These will make a big difference to the experience mums and families have of NHS maternity services, with more choice and a better environment where women can give birth.”

In 2008, the award-winning £3m birth centre in Central Middlesex Hospital in Park Royal, was closed four years after it was opened forcing more parents to go to NPH to have their babies.

Gloria Rowland, NPH’s head of midwifery, said: “We are delighted with the funding that the maternity unit has been granted.

“The money will allow us to further improve and expand the facilities we have for new mothers, their babies and families. It will also allow us to give mothers greater choice in the type of birth they would like.”

NPH is on of 100 hospitals across the country to receive the extra funding.