Health officials have promised a "gold standard" hospital

Health Minister Andy Kerr confirmed the funding to NHS Greater Glasgow on condition the development included adult and maternity services.

The board said the announcement was "very good news" for Glasgow.

It came after the Queen Mother's Maternity was temporarily saved from closure until the new "gold-standard" hospital is built.

Earlier this year the board decided to close the Queen Mother's, which is on the same site as Yorkhill Hospital for Sick Children.

Health chiefs said it was no longer feasible to maintain three maternity hospitals in the city.

But a campaign, spearheaded by the Evening Times newspaper in Glasgow, helped the hospital win a surprise reprieve from former Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm.

'Quality of care'

On Monday, in a letter to Professor Sir John Arbuthnott, chairman of the health board, Mr Kerr said he recognised the clinical case for having paediatric services and a maternity unit on the same site.

However, he recognised the board's conclusions that maternity services should be on the same site as adult acute services and that Glasgow could only sustain two maternity units.

The letter also set out the role of an advisory group to look into the building of the new hospital.

The new development is to include adult and maternity services

Mr Kerr said: "I will task this group with responsibility to monitor plans for the co-location of paediatric, maternity and adult clinical services, to approve the option appraisal of possible sites and to ensure this is no diminution of the quality of care available to mothers and children up to the time the triple location service is operational."

NHS Greater Glasgow's medical directors for the three acute hospital divisions - Dr Brian Cowan (South Glasgow Division), Morgan Jamieson (Yorkhill Division) and Dr Bill Anderson (North Glasgow Division) welcomed the executive's announcement.

In a joint statement, they said: "There was a strong clinical consensus during the consultation process that this service arrangement was best for women and babies.

"Without the extra resources which the minister has now announced this gold standard was not an option for many years, so this announcement is very good news for child and maternal health services in Glasgow."

'Time to move on'

The directors said they also hoped to draw a line under the long and bitter dispute over maternity services in the city.

They added: "While making this very positive response to the ministerial statement, we must also highlight the fact that although there have been strongly held and differing views about some of the clinical issues during the consultation, there was a clear consensus across the clinical community that Glasgow could not sustain three maternity hospitals beyond the short-term.

"We are making this statement on behalf of medical staff across maternity and children's services.