BOLTON health watchdogs are battling to save a midwifery service which won nationwide praise for its work in one of the most deprived parts of the borough.

Halliwell Midwifery Scheme was established five years ago through funds secured by City Challenge and focused on women and babies in the Halliwell community.

Now the funding has run out and the two midwives who set up and ran the service have been ordered back in to the Royal Bolton Hospital to pick up their normal duties.

The work of the two midwives, Sue Baines and Janice O'Brien, has won praise and respect from other parts of the country and Bolton Community Health Council is anxious to ensure the scheme's continued presence in the Halliwell community.

Jenny Crabb, Chief Officer of Bolton CHC, said: "Sue and Janice have done some amazing work in the last five years with women in the area.

"They help teenage mums, women from ethnic minorities and anyone else who wants to drop in for advice.

"The project has received national recognition with Baroness Jay talking about the work at a prestigious conference and midwives from all over the country asking for help to set up similar schemes.

"But health bosses in Bolton still want to end the project." A spokesman for Bolton's Ethnic Minority Health Forum, said: "The local ethnic minority community will be losing a very important source of information and advice from these two midwives they have come to trust."

A spokesman for Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust, which pays the salaries of the two midwives and approved their move to the Halliwell community five years ago, said:

"It was always known that this particular project would only run for a limited time, due to the funding available.

"However, many valuable lessons have been learned from it and since the project started these have been applied through Bolton - not just in Halliwell - through the introduction of the team midwifery scheme."

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