Professor Andrew Calder, who led plans to bring maternity, paediatric and adult hospital services together in the city, has called for the title to be adapted for the refurbished labour suite on the Southern General site.

Health board NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is insisting that the redeveloped facility will be known as the Southern General Maternity Unit.

However, Mr Calder said this would be a shame, describing the Queen Mother’s as “the cradle of ultrasound scanning” and said Professor Ian Donald’s pioneering of the technology there meant that the hospital was known around the world.

The board says retaining the name would be too confusing, but Mr Calder said: “The Queen Mother’s was a purpose built centre of excellence and Professor Donald and a group of four colleagues he took there produced clinical standards as high as anywhere in the land.

“ You can name people all over the country and the world who took the Queen Mother’s expertise ... to London and Australia.

“Its international reputation was built principally on that and for that to be suddenly cast into the mists of history would be such a shame.

“People recognise the name of the Queen Mother’s. What we need to look at is a compromise. If it became the Queen Mother’s Maternity Unit of the Southern General Hospital I think that is a compromise people ought to be persuaded to accept.”

In Edinburgh the name of the Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion was retained when the service moved along with Edinburgh Royal Infirmary to Little France, becoming the Simpson Centre for Reproductive Health.

The planned co-location of maternity, paediatric and adult hospital services at the Southern General is regarded as the “gold standard” in modern medical care as it means specialist help will be available on site for both mothers and babies who encounter problems at births.

However, the new children’s hospital will not open on the Govan campus until at least 2015. When the Queen Mother’s, which is beside the existing Royal Hospital for Sick Children, shuts tomorrow it will mean some sick infants who need very specialist care will have to be transported across the city.

The gap was expected to last for between one and four years when the group chaired by Mr Calder first published their plans and MSPs have expressed concern about the delay.

Mr Calder told The Herald: “I think the politicians are right to make a fuss about the delays and it does seem as if the delay is going to be longer than people were given to understand.”

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said in a statement: “The activity from the Queen Mother’s is moving to two other well-established maternity units with their own identities (Princess Royal Maternity and Southern General).

“It would be both illogical and confusing to patients, visitors and staff to rename either one of the existing units after the Queen Mother’s, which is so clearly identified with the Yorkhill site.”