BRADFORD Royal Infirmary's revamped £2 million neonatal unit officially opens next week with almost £90,000 of donated equipment to help save more tiny lives.

Dr Hilary Cass, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics,will be the guest of honour at Thursday's ceremony which will be attended by fundraisers and many of the parents who helped redesign the new unit.

The list of equipment bought with money from Bradford Hospitals Charity includes a special £13,000 cot called a Techotherm, used to gradually warm up poorly babies whose temperatures have been cooled to help give them a better chance at life and protect their brains. The new-look unit now has two of them.

Fundraiser Hayley Collis, of Bradford Hospitals Charity, said: " All the equipment we've been able to buy is to enhance the existing service.

"It's about keeping babies close to home to have specialist treatment, it's about best quality and being fit for purpose. It's all the latest equipment and it's what everyone is after."

The charity has been raising funds for the refurbished unit since the project started more than two years ago and much of the donations have come from parents and families who have experienced the unit at first hand.

"People go above and beyond to do fundraising for us and we appreciate it so much. It makes a big difference," said Hayley.

The shopping list supplied by the charity included computers, recliner chairs for mums nursing their babies skin-to-skin, tables, lockers, screens, curtains, bedroom furniture, wireless clocks, TV and DVD and nine special workstations which mean parents, doctors and babies can all stay together.

"The workstations with computers go next to the baby and mean mum or dad can be changing nappies while doctors are doing tests and can just write up their reports there. It used to be that babies might have to be taken off to have tests done and then doctors would go elsewhere to do their reports. This way everything is kept together, it's better for everyone."

The refurbishment saw a rebuild of the old baby unit which has opened, although not officially, in stages.

The enlarged unit has ensuite family bedrooms, a play area within a new relatives sitting room and a counselling suite. There is also a dedicated room for mothers to express breast milk for their pre-term babies.

It previously cared for up to 27 babies at any one time and was regularly full but now has 31 cots including ten intensive care and high dependency cots. Babies delivered in other hospitals are often transferred to the unit for the highest levels of intensive care.