Over 2,000 foreigners had babies in NHS hospitals last year, as number of immigrants giving birth in UK rises by more than 100 per cent

THE NHS was blasted as a “soft touch” last night as the full extent of the foreign mum birth racket emerged.

A Sun investigation found the number of health tourists coming here to give birth for free has risen by more than 100 per cent in two years.

At least 2,167 ineligible women had babies on English maternity wards last year — then refused to pay for their care.

Some hospitals were left to foot a bill of more than £50,000 for a single birth.

Most of the mums were from outside the EU and did not qualify for free care.

Joyce Robins, of Patient Concern, said: “The NHS cannot pay for the whole world to have its babies. We are seen as a soft touch and it has got to stop.”

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “Women should never be denied maternity care or made to wait for it.

“But it’s also right that the NHS checks if mothers are eligible for free care and, where necessary, payment is recovered.

“This Government was the first to take action to protect our NHS from abuse and last year we clawed back £289million from overseas visitors with more to come.”

Almost 100 hospital trusts responded to our Freedom of Information requests — around two in three.

They revealed last year’s outstanding bills total £7.4million.

But the real figure is likely to be closer to 4,000 bills and losses nearer £15million

Our finding comes after we revealed bosses at St George’s Hospital plan to ask all mums-to-be to show ID.

We told in October, inset above, how the South London trust said it had been targeted by 900 health tourists.

At least seven trusts — in addition to St George’s — are each chasing payments from more than 100 foreign mums.

Women who claimed free maternity care they were not entitled to rose from 1,078 in 2013/14 to 2,167 in 2015/16.

Trusts admitted most of the bills would be written off.