ABSTRACT
But, since the hospital at which the mother is confined depends in the first instance upon her letter of referral from her own doctor, it does seem that some unofficial discrimination is being exercised by the general practitioners in Nottingham to send more middle-class mothers to the maternity hospital; an additional factor may be that middle-class mothers both expect to have a choice of hospital and are articulate enough to see that their expectations are fulfilled. This does not, of course, imply that treatment at the maternity hospital is in fact superior to that in the wards of the general hospitals. There are, however, a very few 'amenity beds' available at the maternity hospital, which may make it more attractive to middle-class mothers; these provide extra privacy on payment of a fee, but do not give priority of any other sort, and may be used without payment in case of medical need. They do not account either for the preponderance of middle-class cases or for the consistent trend shown throughout the class scale. These findings confirm what might be expected, that the middleclass are better served by the Welfare State if only because they are better equipped to find out what is available and to make sure that it is available to themselves.
