BOLTON health bosses could be forced to delay some schemes to pay for extra intensive care beds for children, it emerged today.

Today's announcement that health authorities must fund more beds from existing cash will mean Wigan and Bolton Health Authority having to find between £120-130,000 this year. In the North-west the Department of Health reckons seven more beds are needed, with 42 nurses to staff them.

The BEN has highlighted a national shortage of paediatric intensive care nurses, but recruitment is proving difficult after the Government abolished top grades.

A report from the NHS Executive says an extra 55 beds should be opened in the next year on top of the 249 currently available.

The news comes after the tragic death of 10-year-old Nicholas Geldart last December.

He collapsed in Stockport and was ferried - already brain dead - more than 50 miles to Leeds after other hospitals refused to take him. Mike Ruane, chief executive of Wigan and Bolton Health Authority, said today: "Before the old North West Regional Health Authority disappeared it announced there would be an additional three intensive care beds at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. "These beds will cost £1.5 million and some of these costs are already covered, but each of the purchasing authorities will be required to find between £120-130,000 in the current financial year. Although this won't mean abandoning schemes it will mean a certain time delay for some."

Plans for a national register of emergency beds and extra funding for paediatric nurses were also expected to be announced later today.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.