THE Royal Blackburn and Burnley General hospitals should seek ‘financial compensation’ when they are forced to deal with high numbers of patients, a director has suggested.

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Hospitals Trust has been swamped with patients in recent months, and board members have sought assurance that 75 extra ‘winter’ beds will be able to close as planned by the end of March.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Keeping the escalation beds open is expensive, and non-executive director David Wharfe saidtold colleagues: “We shouldn’t be backwards in coming forward in terms of seeking financial compensation... when things are not achieved through no fault of our own.”

It comes amid an ongoing national debate on the impact of huge cuts to social care budgets, and the extent to which they have resulted in more elderly patients needing hospital care.

Martin Hodgson, the trust’s director of service development, said compensation was ‘not the right word’ and pointed to a new financial arrangement in place from April. This will see up to £38 million of NHS cash given to social services teams in Pennine Lancashire, with the cash transfer depending on their success in reducing hospital attendances.

Meanwhile, data obtained by the Lancashire Telegraph revealed that Lancashire County Council spent about £226 million on its core social care services for adults last year, including residential care, meals, direct payments, home care and day care, which represents a real terms cut of about £58 million since the last election.

In that time the council has withdrawn funding from those with ‘moderate’ needs and increased its charges for services, resulting in about 10,000 fewer people receiving these care packages.

Tony Martin, cabinet member for adult and community services, said resources have been refocussed on preventing people needing care in the first place.

In Blackburn with Darwen, overall funding has been slashed by about £17 million in real terms, to £41 million this year. The council has stopped funding meals-on-wheels completely, but said it ceased funding those with moderate needs prior to 2010.

Although about 600 fewer people received the core services last year, social care boss Steve Tingle said about 2,000 people are now receiving Telecare support, such as electronic devices which alert family members when their loved one has failed to take their medication.

He added: “I’m not pretending for a minute that the cuts haven’t had an impact, but we’ve managed to mitigate the effect. We are not supporting fewer people in social care on account of the cuts and have made what we do deliver more cost effective. It’s not as simple as cuts in social care mean more people turn up at accident and emergency.”