A PROJECT to make East Lancashire a beacon of excellence in health care and a magnet for staff over the next few years is gathering pace.

Professor David Pilgrim, the new clinical dean for the area's teaching Primary Care Trust, has been busy forging links with further and higher education establishments in the North West which train prospective NHS workers.

The long-term aim is to improve learning opportunities for staff which will help people choose a career in East Lancashire.

East Lancashire won teaching trust status last year because primary care in the area faces a significant challenge to reduce inequalities and improve health generally in an area where poor diet and low wages take their toll.

At the same time East Lancashire also has high levels of vacancies amongst GPs and struggles to recruit and retain all groups of health professionals because of high workloads and patient sickness levels.

A third problem is the absence of a university in East Lancashire with the nearest ones being at Preston, Lancaster, Manchester and Salford.

Prof Pilgrim is familiar with East Lancashire having worked in the area previously.

He said: "The name 'teaching' PCT is a misnomer. We won't actually be providing teaching ourselves but working closely with education establishments which provide healthcare staff.

"It's all about the three Rs -- recruitment, retention and returning. We want people to be attracted to a career in East Lancashire, those who already work here to stay here and hopefully to tempt back those who have moved away or left the NHS to come back to our area.

"It's about raising the professional culture and making professional life more interesting. Teaching, learning and research should start to become mainstream activities in local primary care services, rather than an afterthought.

"For example, we offer learning events and are encouraging people, through links with universities, to get involved in research and development and specialisms.

He said in the next few years they would be working with education partners to try and improve the range of courses offered around the North West and try and attract university and college leavers to East Lancashire.

He said: "It's no good if people from our area have to go to Sheffield, for example, to train as a nurse. If they do they are more likely to work there when they leave.

"Over the next few years the range and appropriateness of courses, offered by places such as the University of Central Lancashire, will grow."

The tPCT is allied to the three PCTs in East Lancashire -- Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley and Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale -- and is one of only 22 tPCTs set up nationally and the only one in Lancashire and Cumbria.