INTENSE pressure on hospitals to treat more patients will eventually affect the quality of care, a health watchdog leader warned today.

Hospitals are facing an ongoing struggle to achieve an efficiency mandate ordered by Treasury chiefs.

The "Efficiency Index" rules that in return for an annual uplift in government cash, hospitals have to get more patients through their doors.

The Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust is poised to meet its target of treating an additional 4.2 per cent patients this year. But health watchdogs are worried that the emphasis on quantity could ultimately have an adverse effect on the quality of treatment.

Eileen Scott, chairman of Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Community Health Council (CHC), said: "We have severe reservations about maintaining the quality of service if this goes on.

"There must come a time when the balance has to be struck in what can be reasonably achieved with the resources available.

"The trust is on a downward path, though I know quality is something we all seek to achieve."

Trust chairman Ian Woolley said: "The reservations are well understood.

"It is amazing that we always seem to improve and maintain quality of care which is a credit to all concerned.

"There has to be a realistic level of funding to meet the demands of the service."

Trust chief executive John Thomas said: "There are some specialties which cannot be expected to do any more, but there are other parts where we can do more."

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