A QUARTER of mums-to-be in Bolton do not speak English, creating huge challenges for staff at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

More than a 1,000 women each year giving birth in the town do not have English as their first language.

Bosses at the maternity unit say it is a testing situation — but stressed they can work around the language barriers to give mums and babies the best possible care.

But they admit nurses are sometimes left to rely on hand signals and expressions to communicate with women in labour.

Now they want to do more and are looking into new measures, such as creating a DVD about maternity services which could be translated into other languages.

Cathy Atherton, interim head of midwifery at the Royal Bolton, said: “The challenge where the first language is not English is how we make sure it is still an equal and dignified service.

“We want all women to have the same service and all the information they need.

“We work hard to communicate the best we can and be well prepared, we do provide good care to all our women and babies.”

The hospital also has its own interpretor who can attend in person to help with certain nationalities.

The ethnic origin of mums-to-be includes Iraqi, Afghan, Polish and Eastern European.