HOSPITAL bosses say they are confident they will be able to recruit enough neonatal nurses for Bolton’s supercentre, despite a national shortage.

The Royal Bolton Hospital is becoming a regional centre of excellence for the care of women, children and babies, which will see its neonatal capacity nearly double in size.

It comes as baby charity Bliss has warned there are not enough nurses across the country to care for the smallest and sickest babies, putting lives at risk.

But Royal Bolton chiefs say they are working hard to make sure the new neonatal centre has all the staff it needs.

Over the past two years, the trust has recruited more than 20 extra neonatal nurses, taking its team up to 45.

A detailed plan has been drawn up to ensure the remaining 35 staff needed are brought in, including transferring nurses from other hospitals, mainly those losing their services as they become more concentrated under Making it Better, taking on extra staff and nurses becoming specialised.

Under the £20 million Making it Better scheme, services for women, children and babies are being improved, taking the hospital from caring for 21 babies at any one time, to 38 little ones.

David Furnival, Making it Better project director said: “We know that one-to-one specialist nursing for these babies is vital for their wellbeing and is vital to the success of our new unit, so we have spent a great deal of time and effort on this.

“We have some challenging recruitment and training targets to meet, but we are confident we can ensure that babies at our unit will get the very best care from appropriately trained nurses in our new unit.”

Making it Better means developments across Greater Manchester, with Bolton becoming one of three specialist neonatal centres in the county from autumn 2011.

The hospital is working closely with the Greater Manchester Children, Young People and Families’ NHS Network, who are coordinating the recruitment of neonatal nurses across the three sites.

The trust says the national shortage is recognised but the county has taken innovative steps to address this.

work includes training programmes to take newly qualified nurses into the specialist area and provide on the job training, including at Royal Bolton, which the hospital says has helped counter shortages.