A CONTROVERSIAL eating disorder clinic which treats people with anorexia and bulimia will close unless new funding can be found, it was revealed today.

The clinic, in Colne Road, Reedley, which is run by Burnley NHS Trust, is not financially viable and is running at a projected £260,000 loss this year, according to a report to the trust board.

Unless East Lancashire Health Authority can inject cash, the in-patient clinic, which opened despite an uproar among residents, will close. The report also warned there could also be a knock-on effect on the out-patient facility at Burnley General Hospital.

Burnley NHS Trust chief executive David Chew said: "If we do nothing we will be left with a huge debt which will begin to destablise the trust in an already difficult financial year."

The clinic was opened in 1995 despite a long campaign of opposition against plans to convert the former house, following pioneering work with patients with eating disorders. It proved to be a lucrative money-spinner for the trust, which was paid to take in patients from Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and beyond. Apart from Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale, the unit also treats patients from Blackburn, Hyndburn, Ribble Valley.

Recently other health authorities have been encouraging trusts in their areas to either open their own facilities, or use private establishments to the point where occupancy of the six-bed unit at Reedley has fallen from a financially viable 80 per cent to 40-50 per cent.

In the year to the end of March, the unit lost £60,000. Its annual running costs are £400,000.

Mr Chew said: "We began to look at it in January and found that health authorities were going elsewhere.

"We have to accept that patients from outside East Lancashire have gone.

"Now we have to look at what service we need for local people.

"There is a suggestion we may be able to deal with them on an out-patient basis with the odd in-patient every now and again.

"Obviously the money the clinic brought in helped funding with the out-patient facility and that has to be looked at now."

Frank Clifford, chairman of the Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Community Health Council (CHC), which worked hard with the trust to get the clinic up and running, said: "It's extremely disappointing.

" We will work with the trust to see if there's not some way of driving this forward and keeping it.

"It's very sad indeed. This was a high profile venture."

He said the clinic had taken an innovative, "homely" approach to what was a sensitive area of treatment and said the need for such a unit was as great as ever.

Urgent talks will go ahead with the health authority and the CHC to resolve the situation, said Mr Chew.

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