FOR many, it is bad enough that the NHS patients' watchdog bodies, their local Community Health Councils, are being abolished and replaced by a less-independent system that many suspect will be toothless.

But it is wrong and ridiculous that, until the dubious new set-up of Patient Forums and Patient Advice and Liaison Services comes into operation next April, East Lancashire health service users could be left without support and advice for six months.

The CHCs are being axed in September. This threatens to leave a long, worrying void in the watchdog services.

At present, the Blackburn and Burnley CHCs have 60 patients' cases on their books. What happens to them? Is their investigation and resolution to be left in limbo?

The government promised that CHCs would not be shut down until all their functions had been taken over by the new bodies. Now, in addition to concerns that the incoming system will be more of a tame poodle than a watchdog since the new forums are, in effect, arms of the health trusts they will monitor and not separate from them, we have this disturbing vacuum.

It is neither right, nor fair. And the government should make swift amends by heeding the call from East Lancashire MPs to postpone the abolition of the CHCs and let them finish the job properly while laying down standards for their successors.