THE Royal Bolton Hospital has today been chosen as one of the region's three maternity super centres.
Maternity wards at Fairfield Hospital, Bury, and Salford will now close as a result.
Hospital bosses learned that the hospital had succeeded in its battle to keep baby and children's services in Bolton at a meeting of the joint committee of primary care trusts.
Originally health bosses had hoped to announce the decision in September.
But a public consultation exercise in April called "Making it Better" inspired 51,000 responses - the largest ever for a NHS public consultation - including 5,000 coupons from The Bolton News' Back the Baby Unit Campaign, prompted the delay.
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