WORK has begun on Burnley's £15 million hospital re-development scheme - a massive four year project which will take services at Burnley General into the new millennium.

And already Health Trust chiefs are finalising plans for further £7 million improvements at the hospital - and say they are prepared to seek private cash backing for a scheme to provide a care-for-the-elderly unit on the site.

Contractors have started demolition of an existing ante-natal clinic at the Edith Watson Maternity Unit as the long-awaited Phase Four scheme gets under way.

The next step in the very first phase of work will be the creation of a modern, state-of-the-art, family health unit with day care facilities.

It is hoped the new unit will be completed by May 1998. It is all part of the largest-ever improvements at Burnley General, unveiled in detail at a special media launch today.

Work on a new orthopaedic unit will start next month, with completion by July 1998.

A day care unit and new operating theatres will be ready by February 1999, with work starting next September.

An integrated medical unit will take shape in April 1999 and the whole scheme completed by July 2000.

It will all mean a giant leap forward for hospital services, providing new theatres and much-improved in and out-patient services.

Trust chief executive David Chew revealed today that a business plan for the £7 million scheme to provide a new care of the elderly unit at the hospital would be put to regional health bosses by the end of February.

And if the National Health Service does not have the ready finance to allow the project to proceed, the Trust would consider seeking a private finance initiative, linking with the private sector to push through the much-needed development.

Hospital bosses aim to go out into the community to publicise latest developments at the hospital - an initiative aimed at informing and involving the public in improving services.

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