EAST Lancashire Hospitals has taken responsibility for 900 extra staff and a range of community-based services.

The hospitals’ trust will now be in charge of providing district nursing, nurse-led community treatment rooms, wound care, dietetics or nutrition support and musculoskeletal care, previously led by the primary care trust.

The move is the hospitals’ trust’s first step towards becoming a ‘whole system provider’ of clinical services, part of an initiative under the Department of Health’s Transforming Community Services programme.

It said the change was an important part of the trust becoming an ‘Integrated Care Organisation’, which aims to offer a more seamless services for patients who are treated in both hospital and community care settings.

The 900 staff will now be employed by East Lancashire Hospitals, but will continue to deliver services to patients in their existing community bases.

The community services will form a division of the trust, which will be headed by Clitheroe GP Dr Alan Crowther, the division’s associate medical director.

Dr Crowther said: “We are joining up hospital and community work to increase utilisation of community hospitals, improve discharge processes, reduce unnecessary urgent care centre attendances and cut down the proportion of patients who require emergency readmission.”

Hazel Harding, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust chairman, said: “Clinical care in the community is the bedrock on which hospital care rests.

Comprehensive community services provide the support for people to stay well, and the systems which identify patients in need of hospital treatment.”