HOSPITAL chiefs have launched the long-awaited £15 million, four-year plan to take health care in Burnley and Pendle into the next millennium.

Work has begun on massive improvements which will enable Burnley General Hospital to treat 7,000 extra patients a year and attract more high-calibre staff.

Some £3.2 million will be spent on a new Edith Watson family centre which will combine child medicine with the women's unit and baby-care.

Another key change will be an upgraded day-case centre with dedicated theatre and endoscopy department. Health trust bosses say more patients will be treated without an overnight stay, so the number of beds at the hospital will be cut from 950 to 900.

By the year 2000, admissions, assessment and general wards will be housed in one unit. Hip-replacements will be done by new surgeons in two new orthopaedic wards, and bridges will be built to link key buildings on the site.

The work, phase four of the trust's development programme, is being funded by £9 million of NHS money and £6 million from the trust's own funds.

Trust chief David Chew said: "We want to treat more local people locally. We are taking the very best of modern healthcare and ensuring that all our communities have access to first-class facilities and services. It is exciting to finally get the building work under way."

Mr Chew joined trust chairman Brian Foster, directorate midwife Margaret Pickles and midwife Elaine Nuttall to begin demolition work in preparation for work on the Edith Watson unit.

Margaret, who has delivered 1,500 babies since she was student at the unit when it opened in 1968, said: "It's wonderful to see families being looked after in a caring and comfortable environment. When I started, husbands never even got over the threshold of the building!"

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