A woman in labour was forced to travel 30 miles through a thunderstorm to get to the nearest available hospital bed.

First-time mother Kelly Miller was already nervous about the three-mile trip from her home in Gladstone Road, Portslade, to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

Then she was told the beds were full and she would have to make a 40-minute journey to give birth at Eastbourne District General Hospital.

The 22-year-old was told by midwives to wait until her contractions were just a couple of minutes apart before coming into the Royal Sussex.

But as she was travelling there she received a call to say there were no available beds. As Worthing was also full the only option was Eastbourne.

Her partner Trevor Coombes, 25, drove while her mother Wendy and sister Charlie tried to reassure her.

She said: "We'd already left it to the last minute, thinking we only had to get to Brighton and when we learned we had to get to Eastbourne everyone was panicking. It was a very scary experience. The journey seemed to take forever and I was worried about the baby because she'd stopped moving about."

Trevor, an electrician and builder, said: "It was pitch black, pouring with rain and there was thunder and lightning. It was a horrible drive, especially because we went along the coastal road which was really tight and bendy."

The family eventually arrived at the hospital and Kelly gave birth to a healthy 6lb 9oz girl called Lexie.

Trevor added: "The maternity staff at all the hospitals are excellent but I am very angry at the way the services are managed. We were just lucky nothing went wrong and we made it to the hospital in time.

"Kelly had her family to look after her and drive her to hospital but for a single mother without the same support it would have been terrible."

Kelly's father Michael Miller said the family were offered an ambulance to Eastbourne but decided it would be quicker to drive.

He said: "I was told it would have cost £500 for the ambulance trip, which surely would have been better spent providing adequate services in the first place."

He said he was appalled the county's already over-stretched maternity units were threatened with closure. He said: "I just thank God everything went right because this could easily have ended in tragedy. I have no doubt that if hospitals close then people will die as a result."

A spokesman for the Royal Sussex County Hospital apologised that Kelly was unable to have her baby at the hospital of her choice.

She said: "On the date of her delivery there was a peak in demand in the number of the women giving birth and our priority is to ensure the safety of women at all times, which is why we referred Ms Miller to an alternative hospital.

"We recognise it can be very disappointing for women to have to deliver at another hospital and we try to ensure as many women as possible deliver here, the hospital of their choice.

"We also work closely with other local units to ensure service needs are met and in the rare event that when we do have to close to admissions, women still have access to maternity care when they need it."

A spokeswoman for Worthing Hospital said: "We do try to help our neighbouring hospitals when we can but we had no available beds."