SUICIDE rates in parts of East Lancashire are twice as high as the national average, a shock new report has revealed.

The number of people taking their own lives is especially high in Pendle where the latest figures show more than 18 out of every 100,000 of the population have committed suicide. The national average is nine.

Now health chiefs are to set up a task force to look into the problem.

Rates are also high across the rest of East Lancashire with 2001 figures showing a suicide mortality rate in Blackburn with Darwen of 14 per 100,000, 10 per 100,000 in Burnley and Rossendale and eight in Hyndburn. The Ribble Valley shows figures well below the national average with just one per 100,000.

Between January 2000 and December 2002 there were 167 deaths from suicide or undetermined injury in East Lancashire.

The shock statistics are revealed in an audit of suicides and injury undetermined deaths carried out for a Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Public Health Report which will be discussed at a meeting of the Primary Care Trust today.

Health bosses say the high levels in the region may be linked to deprivation and they are set to outline the ways the numbers of suicides can be tackled.

The figures show a rise in the suicide rate from 2000-2001 in Pendle and Blackburn with Darwen, but falls in Rossendale, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley.

Strategies are likely to include further audits of suicides so those at risk can be identified and helped, a media campaign to promote positive mental health and more information sharing among agencies dealing with people with mental health issues, drug abuse and housing problems.

Coroners will also be asked to collect information on suicides' ethnicity, place of death, cause of death and employment.

The report shows that most suicides in East Lancashire, as well as nationally, are men of a working age with the highest number of cases in men aged 35-64. Three times as many men as women killed themselves.

The pattern of deaths show people are most likely to kill themselves at home with hanging, strangulation or suffocation the most popular methods followed by poisoning.

Dr Ellis Friedman, public health director for Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust admitted the figures were high but said the three PCTs in East Lancashire were working together and with the Lancashire Care Trust to reduce the figures.

He said: "During the suicide audit period there were significantly higher rates in Pendle whereas Burnley and Rossendale had roughly the national average.

"But these are small numbers of course and therefore fluctuations are to be expected.

"Nevertheless when you look at the figures over a longer period there is a higher rate then the national average across East Lancashire as a whole.

"This is not unexpected because we have more of the underlying causes such as deprivation and lack of money and opportunities."