NEW health bosses have promised to work at improving services at Leigh Infirmary.

But they have also warned there's no going back to the old days of acute hospital and A&E facilities.

And speaking at the first meeting of the Leigh Primary Care Group, chairman Dr Deepak Trivedi said they were going to target coronary heart disease in Leigh.

The Leigh and Abram doctor said they planned to improve the services at Leigh Infirmary but couldn't "go back in time".

"But we can certainly improve the services for people in Leigh, Tyldesley, Atherton and Astley by providing more extra outpatient clinics."

He said that previously critics had complained that health service planning hadn't been done by people working at ground level.

He told the other members of the Group (pictured): "We have the opportunity of taking it further into the next Millennium and if we work together we will be able to achieve the goals we are setting up," said Dr Trivedi.

He also said the public must understand that there was a shortage of doctors and nurses which wasn't going to improve in the near future although the Government had announced plans to recruit 15,000 more nurses and 7,000 doctors.

"In the meantime we have to look into tackling the problems of shortage with alternative kinds of services which we can provide such as extra clinics."

He later revealed that there were plans for combined Wigan Infirmary and Bolton Hospital clincis at Leigh Infirmary to save patient travelling time and for patient records to be held electronically to improve access and patient care.

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