PATIENTS at East Lancashire hospitals are being offered football-themed plaster casts to help them celebrate the World Cup.

Plaster technicians at both the Royal Blackburn Hospital and Burnley Gen-eral Hospital have designed synthetic plaster casts with footballs on and white casts wrapped with red casting tape to form the St George Cross.

Sister of the fracture clinic, Linda Clements, said that the plaster casts had already proved a hit with children and adults alike.

She said: “We're doing about two or three a day.

“The people who have had them have been very happy with them and they have had quite a lot of comments.

"The St George Cross looks great on knee casts because there is quite a lot of length to show it.

“The children are having the football ones and the adults are keen on the St George ones.”