HEALTH chiefs have made an 11th hour U-turn on plans to shut the stroke unit at Burnley General Hospital after an emotional response from staff.

Managers were told that shutting the 15-bed ward - for patients recovering after a stroke - would have a serious impact on patient care.

Some staff burst into tears when they were told the news last week.

But the senior consultant Dr Nitish Goorah said that a meeting he had with health bosses yesterday had reached an agreement to keep the ward open.

It will now move to an empty space in the main acute services block, which he said would greatly benefit the team.

Yet fears have been raised that ward closures will remain on health chiefs' agenda.

The news comes less than a fortnight after managers shut a rehabilitation ward at Queen's Park Hospital in Blackburn.

Dr Goorah said: "I was very upset and I did ask how much work had gone into it and that they couldn't shut a service overnight."

And he warned that managers must manage hospital finances better to avoid the threat of ward closures.

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust overspent by £4.025 million last year - and has pledged to make savings by next April.

Managers had said that they were looking at new ways of working by using fewer beds and discharging people more efficiently.

Dr Goorah said: "We need to make sure we don't keep overspending because it is like any place in the world, if you overspend you can't run the service.

"From a clinical point of view what we want to achieve is sometimes different from what managers want to achieve so we have to talk and communicate."

He said that the move would allow patients to be nearer to services such as diagnostics in the new space being made avail-able on ward three.

The present the accomm-odation was not in the main block which meant that patients often needed an ambulance ride from ward 10, he said.

Dr Goorah said: "Ward 10 is one of the oldest wards at the hospital and is quite far from the main building."

Tim Ellis, spokesman for publice services union Unison, said staff were at first "shocked and appalled at the proposal and a lot of them broke down crying".

Yet he said today: "We are grateful for the news but we are still concerned whether more ward closures will follow."

One of the three rehabilitation wards at Queen's Park Hospital was closed this month, a move unions blamed on the drive to save cash.

The Trust was not available for comment.