Welcome news for mums and midwives

Health secretary Alan Johnson has outlined plans to recruit 4,000 extra midwives into the NHS - good news for the employees at Birmingham Women's Hospital who are clearly overworked.

The midwife who delivered Mollie barely had time to cut the umbilical cord before dashing to another emergency on the delivery suite.

Later, a trainee midwife revealed many of her colleagues travelled in from Liverpool and Wales because there were so few jobs available.

Imagine a long stressful day on the labour ward followed by a 100-mile commute.

No wonder another report published last week found growing pressures on maternity services were putting mums and babies at risk. The Government's announcement comes just in the nick of time.