HUNDREDS of ill babies or mothers could be cared for at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital in a new £5.5m expansion of its neonatal intensive care unit.

Oxford University Hospitals Trust has applied for planning permission for an extension next to the unit – which is the only newborn intensive care unit in the Thames Valley – to double the size of its operation to 20 cots.

In 2010 it had to turn away 254 seriously-ill mothers and babies due to the lack of room.

Women and their children who cannot fit into the unit are either being cared for out of the region or at units that do not quite meet the standards of the NICU, the trust said last night.

Around 200 babies are treated each year at the unit, and trust spokesman Susan Brown said there had been a 13 per cent increase in intensive care activity so far this financial year compared to 2010 to 2011, after a 32 per cent increase from 2007 to 2010.

Unit director Dr Eleri Adams said: “There is a shortage of intensive care cots in our area and this development will mean we are in a position to offer excellent newborn intensive care facilities for local families who need them.”

Sixteen of the 20 intensive care cots will be in the new extension, which will allow for twice as much space around each cot, along with a new secure entrance, waiting area, reception and ward clerks’ office.

The news has been welcomed by mothers whose babies were treated there.

Emily John, 25, from Greater Leys, whose son Sam, two, was born 10 weeks prematurely and spent the first week of his life in the unit, said the treatment they received made a huge difference.

She said: “Being able to be close to him when you’re in and out all the time was really important – it would have been awful if he had had to be transferred somewhere else.

“Sam needed help with breathing and feeding and I don’t think I realised until afterwards how ill he’d been.”

Laura Brewer, 48, from Old Minster Lovell, whose twins Jackson and Maia were treated at the unit in 2007, said: “In 2007 they were struggling to find beds, having to move women who were vulnerable during the later stages of pregnancy to other hospitals in order to provide care for their at-risk babies.”

The trust was asked by the South Central Strategic Health Authority to provide the extra cots because it is a regional centre. If it gains approval, work would start in the spring and the unit would be finished by early 2013.

It is believed the existing unit would stay open throughout the expansion.

Ms Brown said figures on the numbers of babies turned away since April were unavailable but were likely to have dropped due to the provision of two extra intensive care cots last year.

About 120 extremely premature babies were born at the hospital in 2011 – the most common reason for a newborn requiring intensive care.