HOSPITALS in East Lancashire are gearing up for the busiest time of their year by laying on extra staff and beds.

Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust has been allocated £1.5million and Burnley NHS Trust has been allocated about £800,000 to help deal with the extra patients expected to attend during the winter months.

A total of three extra wards, normally used for non-urgent patients, will be used to cope with demand, extra beds will be rented from private hospitals and all non-urgent surgery will be cancelled so staff and beds can be used for emergencies.

Rob Bellingham, Director of Corporate Development at Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust said they expected their busiest time to be the first two weeks after the New Year holidays finish.

He said more staff would be on duty in the Accident and Emergency department, which saw an average 60 patients a day last winter, to speed patients through the system, preventing long 'trolley waits.'

He said: "There is some increase in patients across the board, but the biggest rise is in old people with chest infections and respiratory problems, which get much worse during the winter."

He added: "We have been given about the same amount of money as last year so we are able to run our winter programme along the tried and trusted lines that we pioneered a year ago."

Part of the scheme will be to redesignate 57 surgical beds for use as medical beds, thus allowing the Trust to better cope with the increased numbers of emergency medical admissions which occur at this time of year.

Mr Bellingham said: "The establishment of outlier wards over the peak winter period is an important part of our winter planning programme. A wide range of measures have been implemented this year to increase capacity, in terms of staff, beds and availability of support services. The planning process is a joint one and involves partners from health, social services, independent and voluntary sectors."

Val Smith, surgical services manager at Burnley NHS Trust, said they had also laid on more staff to cope with the peak in demand including employing two nurse practitioners to treat minor injuries in A&E. They have also laid on a ward with 18 beds given over to in-patients.

Both Trusts have hired more beds in private nursing homes for recovering patients.