HEALTH chiefs could not say where a pregnant woman about to give birth to a very premature baby would have to deliver, it has emerged.

It comes after a mother from Scarborough was told she may have to go to Edinburgh because no neonatal intensive care beds were available anywhere nearer.

A special care baby incubator with a ventilator was available at York Hospital yesterday, but if a very tiny baby in need of extra-special care were born, officials could not say where it would be treated.

Dr Bryan Gill, lead clinician for the Yorkshire Neonatal network, said it dealt with about 4,000 babies each year, and 97.5 per cent of that care was provided in this area.

The network, which covers York, Scarborough, West Yorkshire and parts of East Yorkshire, is one of 24 across the country.

Each network has one neonatal intensive care unit - the local one being in Leeds - which usually treats the tiniest of babies born at 27 weeks or less, when a full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks.

Mike Proctor, chief operating officer at York Hospital, said it had a special care baby unit which had two incubators with ventilators, able to care for all but the sickest of premature babies, and one of these was available yesterday afternoon.

But the Yorkshire And Humber Strategic Health Authority said it would be too difficult to find out where an extremely poorly baby would go.

A spokeswoman said: "The status at our hospitals is changing every hour, and it would be unfair to find out where someone would have to go at one specific time.

"Travelling outside the network is extremely rare."

Tracy Woodall, network manager of neonatal care in Yorkshire, has told how she spent seven hours trying to find a place for a baby due to be born at 25 weeks in Scarborough General Hospital.

It was set to be transported to Edinburgh, but health chiefs said the mother was eventually found a place at James Cook Hospital, in Middlesborough.

A spokesman for Scarborough Hospitals NHS Trust said: "For babies who are likely to be delivered before 27 weeks, we transfer both mother and baby to the nearest neonatal intensive care unit, where they can be cared for by specialist staff in appropriate facilities."