A VITAL new piece of equipment aimed at erasing cataloguing errors has been bought for Burnley General Hospital.

The Tissue Processing Cassette/Labeller machine has been paid for with £3,000 raised by the League of Voluntary Workers.

The cash was raised in the charity's shop and at a series of fundraising events through the year.

The machine, which will be presented to the histology department later this week, is used for labelling tissue samples and replaces the pencil used previously by the department.

The machine imprints a permanent ink mark into plastic sample cassettes along with a patient's name and makes it easier for laboratory staff to match samples with patient records.

Bosses in the department hope the new equipment will eliminate mix-ups with samples.

Tony Fearn, the man in charge of the histology department at Burnley General Hospital, said: "This will help keep track of specimens such as cancer tissue samples and biopsies and in theory ensure that they match up with the forms.

"We are extremely grateful to the League of Voluntary Workers for the money that has enabled us to buy this equipment, which although small, is absolutely vital to our operation. We were just using an ordinary lead pencil to mark specimens before which was not ideal. This should be more accurate."

John McNabb, chairman of the League, said: "We wanted to get something that would benefit as many patients as possible and this piece of equipment should help do that."