RESIDENTS of a borough hard-hit by coronavirus has been urged to take up their Covid booster jabs to ensure the disease does not return and overwhelm its hospital.

Conservative Cllr Derek Hardman and Labour's Cllr Julie Gunn made the plea as Blackburn with Darwen borough's full policy council debated a report on the impact of the pandemic.

They expressed fears the Royal Blackburn Hospital might be unable to cope with a new wave of the virus.

And the authority's former public health director Professor Dominic Harrison was singled out for praise for his work fighting Covid-19.

Cllr Hardman said: ""I have concerns going forward. The uptake of the fourth jab certainly has not been as high a was expected. As we come in to winter the hospital's A and E is on its knees.

"It's full every night. There are people on trolleys every night. We can't get beds in the hospital to get them out of A and E. If we suddenly have a surge in Covid I hate to think what state the hospital will be in. I would like to know what we are going to do to get this fourth jab out."

Education boss Cllr Gunn: "Derek has just spoken about the low uptake of the fourth and the fifth vaccination of those eligible. We really need to remind people of the impact of the pandemic and why we want to do everything we can to avoid being there ever again.

"As a council we have encouraged take up. We have had street teams knocking on doors.We have had pop-up clinics across the borough. We will continue to promote the uptake.

"The pressure on hospitals isn't now because of the pandemic. It is because of 12 years of cuts. We have seen the NHS being strangled."

Council leader Cllr Phil Riley said: "This report is a summation of the effort to deal with the pandemic.

"We are partaking in the Covid inquiry. We were very much in the national spotlight partly because of the absolutely lamentable performance by the national track and trace.

"We were the first authority to realise exactly how badly that was being done and to do it locally.

"So we have not just a story of being on the receiving end in terms of cases but also in terms of the responses we took, very much setting the standards."

His Conservative group counterpart Cllr John Slater: "I am disappointed in the report that Professor Dominic Harrison does not get a mention. Yet he was the main person in the borough that drove this."

Borough public health boss Cllr Damian Talbot said: "Dominic's role in the handling of the pandemic within the borough was absolutely second to none. His role has been acknowledged nationally."