A decision that will change where thousands of East Lancashire babies are born will be made tomorrow.

Health chiefs will back one of two options, both of which guarantee a raft of controversial changes to Blackburn and Burnley hospitals.

A spokesman for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust said the review was "the most comprehensive exercise of its kind ever undertaken into hospital services in East Lancashire".

The options only differ on which hospital will have consultant-led births, a maternity and high dependency unit, the ability to see gynaecology emergencies and a neonatal intensive care unit for sick babies.

Bosses said about 2,400 Blackburn babies would have to be born at Burnley General if it gets the services.

About 1,500 Burnley and Pendle babies will be born at the new Royal Blackburn Hospital if Burnley General loses out.

The meeting will be held at Clayton Park Conference and Learning Centre, off junction seven of the M65 at Clayton-le-Moors at 10am.

Under both options - which went out for public consultation from March to July - Burnley is guaranteed to lose A&E services.

This will see about 16,000 people a year go to Blackburn who would have otherwise gone to Burnley.

But more Blackburn people, about 5,700, will have to travel to Burnley for overnight surgery for most specialties.

Bosses say the changes are needed because services are too expensive and spread too thinly to adequately staff.

Yet the health chiefs have been criticised for presenting people with little choice and failing to engage the public to have their say.

We first revealed the initial plans 12 months ago. These centred on which hospital should have intensive care beds taken away, leading to storm of protest from unions, councillors and the public.

A further option was added to the initial four, emphasising the need for the status quo.

But the two final "service models" were announced in March - and both guaranteed the loss of dedicated intensive care beds.