A NEW mental health unit has opened its doors as bosses reveal that plans to modernise local health care are on track.

Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Health Care Trust has embarked on a programme designed to improve services, slash waiting lists and meet targets set by the NHS Plan, published last year.

A scheme to develop an acute mental health unit is already complete and the £7million facility at Queens Park Hospital -- named Pendle View -- opened at the weekend.

The two-storey triangular building will replace existing mental health care facilities and provide in-patient and day care treatment for acute mentally-ill patients from Blackburn, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley.

The unit has capacity for 72 in-patients, each with individual bedrooms and en-suite facilities and includes an enclosed balcony area and landscaped courtyard, treatment facilities and consultation rooms. It will be linked to existing mental health facilities in the hospital via a corridor.

New figures have revealed that 2,000 outpatients were waiting treatment in East Lancashire -- the fourth lowest in the North West. But the figures for some of the specialist treatment were among the highest in the region.

Rob Bellingham, the Trust's director of corporate development said: "This new unit represents a tremendous improvement on the previous facilities, offering an extremely high standard of accommodation to its users."

A number of initiatives, which were beginning to come to fruition, include:

Expanding services Improving access

Improving facilities

Patient and user involvement.

Mr Bellingham said the Trust had vowed to take on more than 40 consultant medical staff by 2005 in a bid to cut waiting lists across the board.

The first have already been appointed with 10 more expected during the financial year 2001/02 and the programme is backed by plans to recruit the necessary nursing and other support staff.

Mr Bellingham added: "By 2005 no-one will wait more than three months for an outpatient appointment and six months for admission to hospital, in line with the NHS Plan targets."