A HEALTH turnaround programme is aiming to ensure there are 'zero corridor days' for hospitals in Lancashire and South Cumbria.

NHS leaders across the two areas have launched a 'recovery board' as it emerges pressures on A&E beds, escalation ward and delayed discharges to costing the health economy around £80m per year.

The Lancashire Telegraph revealed earlier this year that an average of 68 patients were left waiting for admission on hospital corridors at the Royal Blackburn Hospital - and probes were ongoing into two deaths said to be the result of 'poor care'.

Russ McLean, chairman of East Lancashire's Patient Voices Group, said then: "Waiting on a hospital corridor for NHS treatment in 2024 is not right in any civilised society.

Hospital chiefs said they had continued to see increased demand in recent months, with numbers up by 100 people a day compared with last year, leading to long waits and patients being put on beds in corridors due to a lack of space.

Now officials from Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board is launching a 'recovery board' in a bid to address similar serious issues across Lancashire's health system.

In a report, board members were told: "Urgent and emergency care (UEC) is a major contributor to pressure in our system.

"Data suggests more than £80m per annum costs are associated with pressures in the emergency departments of our acute hospitals, with staffing of corridor care, additional beds on hospital wards, escalation wards and capacity lost to beds being occupied by those clinically ready for discharge.

"Building on the production of our system UEC Strategy and working closely through and with our place directors, plans will accelerate a range of initiatives that will help avoid admissions, eliminate corridor care and ambulance handover delays, address the root causes of service vulnerability and reduce the impact of acute hospital beds being lost to those clinically read for discharge."

The goals for the initiative will include 'zero corridor days' and 'zero ambulance delays', the board was told.

Sam Profitt, the ICB's deputy chief executive, said: "It is not great, is it, to have people sitting in corridors or not able to get out of hospital quickly enough so we have got to focus on this from a quality perspective as it is costing us an awful lot of money."

The board has heard there would, running concurrently, be increased efforts to eliminate waste and duplication of services, within the health economy, and transform more services, using 21st century technology, to better address the health needs of the population.