More than half of England's specialist baby care units do not meet the government's minimum standards and are putting the most vulnerable babies at risk, a charity warned on Monday.
Bliss, a special care baby charity, said staff cuts in a third of England's 172 neonatal units were "significantly affecting the care of premature and sick babies".
Minimum standards set by the Department of Health require 70% of nurses and midwives in neonatal units to be qualified in specialist care, Bliss said, but more than half had failed to meet this target. Last year, the charity said 1,150 extra nurses would be needed to reach minimum standards, but a recent freedom of information request by the charity found 140 posts had been cut.
In addition, it said that while 450 nurses needed to receive extra training to meet the department's standards, one in 10 units said they were struggling to release staff for training because of budget cuts.
Andy Cole, chief executive at Bliss, said: "The government's assurances that frontline services would not be affected by changes in the NHS is not true for these most vulnerable patients. The government and the NHS must take responsibility now and ensure our tiniest and sickest babies receive the highest standard of care at this critical time in their lives."
Bliss reported that about 20% of neonatal units were likely to make further cuts to their workforce in the next 12 months, through redundancies, vacancy freezes and down-banding posts.
Janet Davies, executive director of nursing at the Royal College of Nursing, said the findings were deeply shocking and called for a stronger strategy.
"At a time when extra nurses are needed to meet even the most basic standards of neonatal care, some [NHS] trusts are making reckless cuts to posts, which will undoubtedly have an impact on the care of premature and sick babies," she said.
"Sadly, this is a reflection on what is happening throughout the NHS, where we know that 40,000 posts are earmarked to be lost. It is critical that hospitals have the right numbers of specialist nurses, who can provide one-to-one care to premature babies and support for families at an extremely stressful time in their lives. Equally, a properly funded strategy is now urgently needed to recruit and retain more of these specialist nurses."
The shadow health minister, Diane Abbott, said David Cameron had failed in his promise to protect health service spending and had reneged on a pledge to recruit 3,000 new midwives. "Instead, we find our sickest newborn babies being put at risk by cuts in specialist nurses up and down the country," she said. "This is a clear betrayal of the promises that Cameron made to the British public."
She said frontline nursing staff needed to be "protected and supported as a matter of absolute priority".
The health minister, Anne Milton, said: "Our modernisation plans will cut the costs of administration by one-third over this parliament, and every penny will be reinvested into frontline services to improve quality for patients.
"We want to make sure that sick and premature babies get consistently high-quality neonatal care. NHS hospitals in England must ensure that they have the right number of qualified staff to provide this. Although it is encouraging that neonatal mortality rates continue to fall, there is still more to do."
