THE battle to return the accident and emergency title to Burnley’s Urgent Care Centre is now going through Westminster.

Health campaigners have been lobbying the NHS to rename the UCC for the past 12 months, and are now awaiting a report that has been handed to the Government.

Burnley General Hospital’s accident and emergency department was closed in November 2007, with services moved to Blackburn.

The UCC was set up in its place to deal with less serious cases.

A review by Professor Matthew Cooke and Dr Irving Cobden into East Lancashire Hospitals revealed that the UCC was now performing many duties that are associated with an accident and emergency department.

Ian Woolley, former hospitals chairman and health campaigner, said: “People are getting very, very frustrated about the delay.

“The Urgent Care Centre is doing more A&E type work than some places that have that name.

“It is not going to be the same as Blackburn, people know that, but in many cases, such as Calderdale and Halifax and Preston and Chorley, there is a major and a minor centre.”

Mr Woolley said that the delay was now being ca-used by a nomenclature review which was with Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, that would look at the naming of such dep-artments.

Mr Woolley said: “I understand that they might want consistency with names, but the national review could go on for years and Burnley deserves to have the A&E title reinstated.

“When it was taken away and moved to Blackburn it upset a lot of people in the town, it felt like they were being demoted, and this would go some way to showing them that wasn’t the case.”