HEALTH chiefs have moved to allay fears among support staff that a £14million redevelopment of Burnley General Hospital could mean job losses.

The phase five development to clear Victorian wards and create five new 28-bed wards together with a new centrepiece main entrance to the hospital is set to get underway towards the end of next year.

The ambitious project will be funded under a private finance initiative (PFI) with Burnley Health NHS Trust teaming up with a consortium of private partners who will put up the cash and lease the new buildings back to the trust over a period of years.

Support staff are worried the consortium chosen to finance the work could include a private contractor who may bid to supply services such as cleaning or catering they currently carry out. Existing trust staff could either be taken on under new contracts by the private firm or it could bring in its own staff.

But yesterday, trust managers stressed work to set up a PFI was in its very early stages and any decision would be made in full consultation with staff. Under NHS rules the PFI would not affect "hands-on" medical staff.

Neil Matthewman, service manager for medical specialities, said: "The staff have been briefed on the general matters. There's nothing definite we can say at this moment because things are still very much at the early stages."

Geoffrey Summers, director of facilities, added that many possible partnerships were being looked at and a shortlist of half a dozen consortiums will be drawn up in the next two or three months. It is too early to say who the eventual partners will be, he added. "These (PFIs) are the rules sent down by the Government and this is the process we have to follow if we want to advance and develop our health services," he explained.

Work on the £14.5 million phase four of the redevelopment of the hospital is set to be completed by autumn 2001. The work, which is three-quarters complete, includes new children's and family services, new orthopaedic and mental health care units, and a new medical admissions unit.

Phase five will see the demolition of the oldest part of the hospital, the outlying workhouse buildings, to be replaced with new wards linked to other hospital services such as X-ray and theatres. It will mean patients will no longer have to be transported by ambulance a few hundred yards from one building to another.

Present out-patient elderly care, dermatology and ENT units scattered around the site will be replaced by a new out-patients complex. A new main entrance and car parking will also be created.

Pictured are Neil Matthewman (left) and Geoffrey Summers outside the new medical admissions unit.

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