HOSPITAL chiefs started a demolition job that will help take Burnley General Hospital into the next century of health care.

Massive £15 million improvements will enable the hospital to treat 7,000 more bed-patients each year, revolutionise standards of care and attract high calibre staff, say health trust chiefs.

Their confident message came at the official launch of the long-awaited Phase Four programme. Demolition work has begun on the first part of the project - at the Edith Watson ante-natal clinic, where improvements will result in a new family health unit which it is hoped will be completed by May 1998.

The four-year programme will emphasise the swing to day case care. The health trust will shed 50 beds, bringing the district total down to 900 at the end of the project.

But improved services will enable the trust to carry out many treatments locally, which at present have to go to specialist hospitals outside the district.

Trust managers have produced their own video on the project and aim to take their message of exciting times ahead to the wider public in a series of public briefings.

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