THE neonatal intensive care unit at Royal Bolton Hospital has received a £3,000 grant — to buy televisions and DVD players.

The unit will also buy cot mobiles and cot activity centres — all equipment which will help speed up their development.

Jacqui Bliss, operational business manager at the Royal Bolton Hospital’s NHS Foundation Trust, said: “It is mainly all equipment that will support children to go home.

“When they are born a lot are very poorly and can be with us for quite a long time and miss out on stimulation.

“We wanted some equipment to support them and give them more additional play as that will help bring their development up to speed.

“It is extremely important they get this extra stimulation because it really can get them home quicker and that can help us to make use of the NHS services.

“It will also help us to teach the parents how to play with their child and also which toys are right for them.”

The hospital won the funding from the Lloyds Bank Community Fund after coming out on top in a public vote.

Some of the money will also be used to buy breast pumps.

Mrs Bliss added: “Just as important is establishing breast feeding as these babies are more open to infection and continuing to breast feed is very useful.”

The neonatal intensive care unit at Bolton is one of three centres of excellence within Greater Manchester that provides specialist care to sick and pre-term infants from all over the North West.

Four good causes were nominated by staff in each community with more than 2.3 million votes cast in branches, online and by text message at the end of 2013.

Lloyds Bank provided funding to some 1,332 community groups in England and Wales through its Community Fund in 2013.

To find out more about the community groups in your area, visit www.lloydsbank.com/communityfund