HOSPITAL bosses are to spend a day with actors pretending to be patients so they can learn how to be more "caring."

The scheme, initially using more than £45,000 bequeathed to the NHS by former patients, was today slammed as a stupid waste of money.

And a union said staff could feel "patronised" after it was revealed the scheme will be used throughout the area's hospitals after being launched with the top executive team and senior managers today.

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust will work with "actors acting out the part of patients" for the programme, titled Being with Patients.

A Trust spokeswoman said a West Yorkshire theatre group will be paid £90 for each member of hospital staff which takes part and initial sessions will involve 500 staff.

The move comes just weeks after a patients' watchdog announced it would be sending fake patients into hospital wards to assess the standards of care and cleanliness.

Liberal Democrat leader of Burnley Council, Coun Gordon Birtwistle, said he was amazed by the news as it came amid a controversial shake-up of services set to take services from Burnley General Hospital.

He said: "It is just a joke. It amazes me that they are shutting services down in Burnley and they are going on something like this.

"How can we have managers who don't know what patients want?"

But Trust chief executive, Jo Cubbon, said: "The Being with Patients' programme goes far beyond the traditional training course in that it aims to reach the hearts as well as the minds of staff who have daily contact with patients to ensure that their behaviour is caring and patient centred.

"I am 100 per cent behind the programme, which is why myself and the executive team will be taking part. The programme will then be rolled out to the rest of the trust and I feel this will have a major, positive impact on patient care."

The news comes a day ahead of the start of the 2006/07 financial year during which the trust is proposing a massive shake-up of services and an £11.6 million savings programme.

But it was revealed yesterday that a further £11.7 million black hole could see "significant" job losses.

Tim Ellis, Lancashire spokesman for union Unison, said: "This could potentially be patronising to staff. The management need to deal with practical problems like staffing and improving practice rather than theory training."

Caroline Collins, Lancashire spokeswoman for the Royal College of Nursing union, said: "I would suggest it would be better for the management team to get into uniform and do a shift." But Dave Hill, development manager at West Yorkshire based Cragrats theatre group, which will provide four actors for a day, said: "I think this is what the NHS needs more than anything else. It should be absolutely core to what each trust does." Jillian Wild, a practice development nurse at Blackburn Royal Infirmary's A&E department said for her the training was "extremely valuable". She said: "It has made me reflect on how patients may perceive me."

A shake-up to be completed by 2009 will see a third of all East Lanc-ashire's overnight beds axed. Burnley will lose its dedicated intensive care beds, capacity to treat serious A&E patients and children's over-night beds.