FEWER children will have to go to hospital - and those who do will spend less time there - as children's services across Greater Manchester are transformed.

Out-dated children's services in place for more than 30 years will be replaced with more community nurses and increased day surgery, limiting the amount of time children spend in hospital.

The strategy was launched this week by the Children and Young People's Network for Greater Manchester and will encourage GPs to develop a special interest in paediatrics - the first in the country to do so.

The proposals recommend that there should also be a specialist unit for very ill newborn babies to cover the Wigan, Salford and Bolton area. They are currently cared for at the Royal Manchester Hospital.

The Royal Bolton Hospital has made a bid for the unit but further work is under way before a final recommendation is made about the unit's location. Premature babies will continue to be cared for at Bolton.

Dr Peter Powell, clinical director for child health at Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust and a member of the Children's Network Supervisory Board, welcomed the proposals.

He said: "It has long been recognised that improvements are needed in the way we care for sick babies and children.

"The network has put forward proposals which are both reassuring and exciting. Reassuring because at last we have a tangible path to the essential improvement of a deficient service, and exciting because the changes will provide new opportunities to excel for every one of us."

Across Greater Manchester, the number of children's community nurses will triple to 125, giving youngsters the chance to be treated at home or to shorten the time spent in hospital.

Day surgery will increase from the current 50 per cent to 75 per cent, enabling 16,300 children to go home the same day following an operation.

Advanced children's practitioners will also be brought in. These are qualified nurses who have completed a two-years Master's degree in paediatrics and premature baby intensive care. They can prescribe drugs and carry out medical procedures usually reserved for doctors.

As part of the reorganisation, health bosses announced that the special care baby unit at Fairfield General Hospital in Bury is to close.

It will mean shorter stays in hospitals for new mothers and more care delivered in the home.

The hospital would also lose two intensive care beds and 10 special care beds in its maternity unit. Problem births would be referred to other hospitals in North Manchester.

The plans will now go to the Strategic Health Authority on July 22. The strategy is expected to be formally adopted later in the year.