HEALTH bosses in East Lancashire have welcomed moves for downgrading and closing hospital A&E departments.

They said comments from PM Tony Blair and senior doctors strengthened the case for cutting blue-light emergencies from Burnley General Hospital.

This will see 13 per cent of patients from Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital.

Yesterday experts said lives would be lost if A&E departments were not shut down.

They said all hospitals do not have access to the best life-saving treatment and this was best sited in fewer hospitals.

Joe Gibson, who is leading the "Meeting Patients' Needs" shake-up in East Lancs, said: "We welcome Professor Alberti's report. It has always been our view that it is important for frontline clinical staff to make the case for service change.

"This is what our senior doctors and nurses have done throughout the Meeting Patients' Needs process."

He said: "In particular the national report strongly supports the Meeting Patients' Needs plans to introduce a network of urgent care facilities and a centralised emergency department with 24 hour consultant cover and state of the art diagnostic services (serving a population similar to ours of around 500,000).

"This is based on advice from the leading clinicians at the Royal College of Surgeons, Joint Consultants Committee and the Royal College of Physicians.

"However, as the report makes clear, on average across the NHS major emergencies affect only about 10% of people (locally our information suggests 13%) - for the bulk of people emergency care will continue to be as local as ever.

He added: "As the national report also makes clear in some services this does require delivering enhanced care on the door step alongside bringing specialist expertise together in one place.

"In terms of emergency care this will help us get the best possible emergency care to patients more quickly - potentially saving more lives.

"We've always emphasised that Meeting Patients' Needs is all about providing better services for patients."

Yesterday a series of statements and reports backed the nationwide shutdown of A&E departments.

Richard Brooks, associate director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, said: "If heart attack and serious injury victims were taken past their local hospitals to a specialist centre, they would be significantly more likely to survive."

Addressing the NHS Confederation, Mr Blair said: "The best reason for all this change is the best reason there possibly can be: better care for the patient.

"I genuinely believe the best is yet to come with more lives saved."

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