Gordon Birtwistle & Burnley Liberal Democrats

Burnley’s councillor responsible for health service scrutiny will tonight bluntly tell NHS officials they must fully re-open Burnley’s Accident and Emergency unit.

Coun Darren Reynolds, who chairs Burnley’s Liberal Democrat party and sits on Lancashire’s health scrutiny committee, will deliver a devastating critique of a review of Burnley’s Urgent Care Centre, and insist that re-opening Burnley’s A&E is the only solution to the failures in Blackburn.

The review is taking place after Pendle’s Gordon Prentice MP secured the intervention of the Prime Minister and met with the Secretary of State for Health. It is being conducted over a two-day period this week. But the officials conducting the review have been instructed not to consider re-opening Burnley’s A&E, leading some to claim that the Labour-inspired review is a whitewash before it has started.

“It is also a starting assumption that the changes had nothing to do with money. This is despite the fact that I’ve been given a copy of the minutes of the meeting which decided to press ahead with downgrading Burnley’s hospital. In them, it is declared that, ‘The option of Burnley General focussing on emergency care was considered but the amount of investment required to redesign the Burnley site to make it viable as the emergency site is unaffordable.’

“No other explanation for the closure to emergencies is given.

“Finally, it is a starting assumption that outcomes have not worsened for patients as a result of the changes. But no proof is offered. There is no comparison with other hospitals. The only group of patients that ever get a mention are cardiac patients, who are generally doing better anyway across the country thanks to improvements in medical technology. There is nothing to link this narrow set of improvements to the reconfiguration, and there are wholesale gaps in the claims for all other groups of patients.

“The review is set up only to consider Burnley’s Urgent Care Centre as it stands. They have not been told to look at the problems in Blackburn but they have been told not to consider re-opening Burnley’s A&E. Given that this is the only solution to the problem, we are at stalemate. The system is broken.”