BOSSES at the Royal Blackburn and Burnley General have been seeking advice from one of America’s top hospitals.

The medical director and chief executive at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) travelled to London last month to attend a “master class” from Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle.

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The session focussed on leadership and board accountability, which were areas of the trust that were severely criticised by NHS inspectors in 2013.

Dr Ian Stanley, who was appointed to the board after the trust was placed in special measures due to inspectors’ criticisms, said: “We are looking to take the best of what others have to offer, particularly around service improvement and quality and consistency of services.

“We’ve got some areas of real brilliance across East Lancashire, but that’s not consistent across the whole trust.”

Virginia Mason is run by a non-profit company and is well-known for applying manufacturing principles to healthcare delivery, after its entire leadership team was taken to the Toyota factories in Japan in 2002, to look at ways to improve efficiency.

ELHT has also continued its “buddying” arrangement with Salford Royal Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, one of the best performing trusts in England.

Salford has helped the trust improve its bereavement services, complaints process, electronic patient records and quality improvement methods.

The link-up has also resulted in further work to improve care for frail elderly patients, as well as providing external reviews of mortality.

Kevin McGee, who took over as chief executive of ELHT in September last year, said: “We are trying to learn from the best organisations nationally and internationally.

“It’s really quite an exciting thing we are trying to do.”