An aircraft normally used to carry the Royal Family has been used to transfer a sick baby from London to Glasgow's Yorkhill Hospital for life-saving treatment.

The operation began at 2120 GMT on Tuesday when the Rescue Control Centre at RAF Kinloss was asked to transfer the week-old baby, who is understood to be suffering from a rare but unspecified condition.

A Royal Navy helicopter at Prestwick was mobilised and flown in bad weather to RAF Northolt where the specialist medical team on board was transferred to St George's Hospital in Tooting.

The baby was stabilised in an incubator throughout the night before eventually beginning the transfer to Glasgow.

The baby was transferred to Yorkhill

Carl Davis, a surgical consultant at Yorkhill, said the baby was in need of respiratory support.

"We're taking the blood from the baby out of the body, through an artificial lung, pumping it back in and allowing the baby's lungs to rest," he said.

"The baby is now stable and we've been working for a number of hours and the parents would just like people to pray for the good health of their baby."

At one point the transfer to Glasgow involved two fixed wing aircraft and two helicopters.

An RAF Hercules transport was scheduled to take the baby to Glasgow but it burst a tyre as it landed at Northolt.

A decision was then taken to fly the baby and the medical team to Glasgow in an aircraft from the Royal Squadron.

The four-engine British Aerospace 146 was the same aircraft used for the Queen's Jubilee Tour of Britain last year.

'Unusual request'

An RAF spokesman said: "We picked up the medical team from Yorkhill and, battling horrific weather, we flew them over the Irish Sea.

"The pilot would normally fly over the Lake District but we had to avoid it as it was deemed impassable.

"Once the medical team arrived at the hospital in Tooting they had to stabilise the baby several times."

The Royal Squadron was contacted when the problem occurred with the Hercules.

A second Sea King from RAF Suffolk was put on standby in case any problems arose at Northolt, where tyre debris from the Hercules had to be cleared from the runway.

The spokesman said: "This is an unusual request and we don't see many rescues of this kind.

Specialist centre

"By the end of the night two helicopters, a Hercules and a commuter aircraft from the Royal Squadron had been involved.

"The small jet aircraft is normally assigned to the Royal Family but we hope it is going to save the life of a little baby."

The child and medical team arrived at Yorkhill after midday on Wednesday.

Morgan Jamieson, medical director of Yorkhill NHS Trust, said the hospital is one of four specialist centres in the UK that offer Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) services to patients.

"The service includes the provision of life-saving respiratory support for newborn babies and involves sustaining oxygen levels within the blood stream," he said.