THE final decision on the future of Fairfield Hospital's maternity department, including its special care baby unit, moves one step closer with the launch of the formal public consultation.

For the next three months, thousands of people and NHS staff will be asked for their opinion on the Making it Better proposals which favours closing the department in a bid to specialise skills and transform children and maternity services in the North West.

More than £30 million will be invested in centres of excellence' to concentrate staff in a smaller number of units working with the best equipment and providing the highest quality of care by giving staff more opportunities to practise specialist skills.

The preferred option put forward is to centralise services at eight hospitals; St Mary's, Royal Albert Edward Hospital in Wigan, Royal Bolton, Stepping Hill in Stockport, Wythenshawe, Oldham, North Manchester and Tameside. Fairfield, Trafford and Rochdale hospitals would be axed. Neonatal intensive care units would be based at St Mary's, Bolton and Oldham.

Routine hospital services, such as ante-natal and post-natal care, would remain at Fairfield, but a mother who experiences complications during pregnancy or birth would be transferred to another hospital she has already decided on. Mothers with no history of complications and expecting healthy births could be admitted to birthing centres' staffed by midwives with no 24-hour paediatric cover.

A formal public consultation document entitled Healthy Futures is also launched today under major plans to reconfigure and improve healthcare services for more than 800,000 people in the north east of Greater Manchester.

Health chiefs say current services are spread too thinly across the area and are proposing to concentrate acute surgery in three hospitals within the Pennine Acute Trust, instead of four.

Three options have been put forward with the preferred option to have Fairfield, North Manchester and Royal Oldham hospitals providing acute medical and A&E services with Rochdale Infirmary as one of the country's first locality hospitals. Fairfield would lose its acute surgery with services moved to North Manchester and Royal Oldham and eventually concentrated on a single site.

If the preferred option is not picked, two alternative options include plans for Fairfield to lose its A&E department with major trauma or serious medical conditions sent to Royal Oldham.

A final decision on both consultations is expected to be made in June.

More information on Healthy Futures and Making it Better, including the full consultation documents, can be found at www.bestforhealth.nhs.uk and a dedicated helpline is available by calling 0161 655 1449. Thousands of copies of the documents are being sent to GPs' surgeries and workshops will be set up for NHS staff and members of the public.