BLACKPOOL brains are needed to help set up a pioneering head injury unit for Lancashire.

The Lancashire Head Injury Association - which launches a new helpline next week - is seeking Fylde Coast fundraisers to help generate £7m for a first purpose-built, NHS-supported head injury unit in the North-West.

The centre would provide 14 beds and a rehabilitation team for victims of strokes, tumours, aneurysms or accidents, plus facilities for families to learn how to care for their brain-injured relative at home.

The association was set up in 1996 by a Preston former senior social worker, Marie Creeney, whose husband, Frank, suffered devastating brain damage from a tumour 11 years ago when he was 62.

"It made him almost a vegetable," said Mrs Creeney, "and he was discharged from hospital with no support. For four years he didn't even recognise me or his children but I learned how to rehabilitate him myself, and now he's much better than they ever thought possible.

"He can walk short distances and, although he's profoundly deaf, he can hold a normal conversation when he's wearing hearing aids.

"I decided, if you can make such a difference for a man of his age, you could do it for much younger people. At the moment too many of them are left in geriatric wards, and it does them no good at all. "The human brain can be re-trained if there are sufficient normal brain cells adjacent to the site of the injury. If you can get in quickly enough you can get them back, but it requires an awful lot of intensive work, which is where the new unit would come in."

The association, a registered charity, has won support from Lancashire's four health authorities and is bidding for a £750,000 lottery grant to kick-start the building work. A site has already been identified in central Lancashire, close to the M6 for easy access from all over the county.

The new helpline, to run every Monday and Friday, 7pm-9pm, will offer help and advice to head injury victims and their carers on (01772) 619854.

Anyone wanting to raise funds, or to offer voluntary services - skilled people are needed in all spheres - contact the Lancashire Head Injury Association, 167 Chapel Lane, Longton, PR4 5NA, tel (01772) 611892.

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