Doctors have injected £140,000 into UCLan's medical institute to help further develop teaching and research.

Burnley-based charity The Mackenzie Medical Centre Association (MMCA) is winding down and granting £140,000 to UCLan’s Mackenzie Clinical Research Institute, which is based on the Burnley campus.

The funds will be used to help develop the medical institute on top of funding more Mackenzie fellowships with the university, adding to a joint venture which is already established between the university and East Lancashire NHS CCG.

Professor Cathy Jackson, Executive Dean of UCLan’s Faculty of Clinical and Biomedical Sciences, said: “This is a major vote of confidence for our teaching and research activities. We created our Mackenzie Institute of Clinical Research, in collaboration with East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust and the East Lancashire CCG, with the aim of increasing the footprint of research through education and supporting the patient journey from the bus stop to the bedside.

“We want to establish a critical mass of healthcare academics and this new funding will enable us to offer more Fellowships and post-doctoral positions to clinicians. By working collaboratively with other academic partners, they will be at the forefront of health research within the area and this can only benefit the patients of East Lancashire.”

The MMCA was set up in Burnley in 1965 by a group of pioneering hospital consultants and local general practitioners.

Dr Malcolm Littley, one of the MMCA Trustees alongside Dr Evan Bayton and Dr Raymond Hyatt, commented: “The provision of services and education within the NHS has developed dramatically in more recent years and the need for the Association has reduced.

"The Trustees are therefore distributing the assets of the MMCA to support the original purposes and standards of excellence in education and research set out by the founders, which will be continued by partner organisations including UCLan."

Sir James Mackenzie, who died in 1925, is globally acknowledged as being the father of primary care research, with his primary interest was in looking at the very earliest symptoms of to better manage and treat them.