IT seems that our local hospitals are back at the top of the local political agenda.

We’re told they have met targets for standards, finance, quality and health and safety.

I’ve no idea what targets for “standards” and “quality” mean, but there must be suspicions that these are areas where ticking the boxes is under the control of the management.

What they can’t control is what patients and staff say about what, in their dismal management-speak, they call the “user experience”.

The patient poll by a body called (equally dismally) the “Care Quality Commission” marked them down on “patients’ care and treatment, the wait for beds, and arrangements for leaving hospital”.

The staff survey reported unhappiness about their work-life balance, good work going “unheralded”, and poor relations with senior managers.

If this is true, it seems odd they are doing so well on standards and quality, and even health and safety. And what about the financial crises that seem to recur every few months?

Let me come clean and report that I’ve been a day patient at Burnley General and the Royal Blackburn in recent months, culminating in a day trip to the seaside to the Lancashire Cardiac Unit at Blackpool Victoria (which is run by a different NHS Trust).

I can report that I have nothing but praise for the care I’ve received and the departments and staff I have encountered.

What I’ve seen is a clear result of the medical advances and investment over recent years.

But it’s not all wonderful.

I wonder how much of the staff and public response is a result of the over-concentration of services at Blackburn and the rundown at Burnley, most of all closure of the A&E?

The issue will not go away (Councillor Gordon Birtwistle for one won’t let go until the battle is won!).

Burnley’s MP Kitty Ussher is still running to keep up, and the demand for a formal inquiry by Ian Woolley and former MP Peter Pike cannot be dismissed.

Meanwhile the bid for foundation status has stalled.

Hazel Harding may find that her new consolation job may not be the cushy number she hoped for.