ALMOST £83,000 has been spent by Bolton health chiefs on consultation on the future of the Royal Bolton Hospital's baby unit - but a firm decision has still not been reached.

Bolton was suggested as one of three super centres for the care of babies and children in the Greater Manchester region.

And Bolton Primary Care Trust handed over £83,000 towards regional health chiefs' public consultation exercise, which has now cost a total of £1.4 million.

But still the hospital is waiting to hear if its campaign to be a super centre has been successful.

An initial decision - naming Bolton as one of three super-centres, along with St Mary's in Manchester and the Royal Oldham Hospital - was made last December.

But an Independent Reconfiguration Panel is carrying out a review in that decision following campaigns by health bosses, council leaders and MPs from other parts of the region.

Labour Party chairman and Salford MP Hazel Blears and Ivan Lewis, the Bury MP and health minister in charge of maternity services, are among the high-profile figures who spoke out after their areas faced losing their maternity services.

The £1.4 million that has been spent on consultation would have easily covered the £1 million cost of fully refurbishing two wards at the Royal Bolton, paid for the children's accident and emergency unit, which is being built on the Farnworth site at a cost of £1.2 million, or would have funded a year of complex heart operations at the hospital.

But regional health bosses insist it was money well-spent as it was the biggest healthcare consultation ever carried out.

John Williams, NHS North-west project director for consultations, said: "This was a major consultation and covered 3.1 million people.

"It involved 17 PCTs, 15 hospitals and 13 local authorities.

"It's cost a lot because we had to make sure the people potentially affected by the changes were aware of them.

"It's also the biggest healthcare consultation ever carried out and produced the largest number of responses, with more the 50,000 people responding."

The outlay included:

  • £438,684 on producing discussion and consultation documents.
  • £175,225 on staff.
  • £333,984 on evaluating the financial and workforce implications.
  • £53,991 on evaluating the public health implications.
  • £10,136 on postage.

Thousands of people supported The Bolton News' Back The Baby Unit campaign to get the Royal Bolton Hospital named as one of the centres of excellence.

Health chiefs in the borough are hopeful the review panel will uphold the original decision.