HEALTH bosses in East Lancashire have promised to step up their public health campaign - despite having already saved 300,000 years of life.

NHS East Lancashire launched its ambition Save a Million Years of Life (SMYL) campaign last year, pledging to add two years on to the life expectancies of all the 500,000 people in Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Rossendale and the Ribble Valley, by 2011.

Trust chairman Kathy Reade said the success in the first 12 months - smashing their initial target of 100,000 years, showed the million-years objective was “completely possible.”

Over the next year dozens of schemes developed since the beginning of the project will be put into action, with a major study of infant mortality, more campaigns against smoking and drinking, and expansion of work to reduce drug addiction.

Mrs Reade said: “From the beginning, this has been an incredibly ambitious plan, but our first year has shown real progress - more than we were anticipating, and that gives everyone confidence.

“But we have always said that this is something we are doing with people, not to them. We need the community to continue to work with us, so that we can reach the right people and get those messages and services to the people who need them most.”

Director of public health Dr Ellis Friedman, who has spearheaded the project, added: “In the first year, we knew that we would still be doing the studies and planning the initiatives, so we didn’t expect to do so well.

“Hopefully, we will see some really huge differences in the next couple of years, when all the work the trust and all the agencies involved in the scheme starts to pay off.

“We have also seen some reduction in the gap between the life expectancies of the area’s wealthiest and most deprived people, which is great news because that is our major objective.”