AN office block could be turned into a 15-bed ward to help with the chronic beds shortage at Burnley General Hospital.

Health chiefs meet tomorrow to look at ways of solving the crisis.

They have come up with several options to provide new beds at the hospital which is struggling to cope with high numbers of emergency admissions.

Managers have worked out around 38 extra beds are needed and although they anticipate 100 more becoming available over the next few years with the £30m Phase Five extension and changes to mental health services, they need a quick solution.

The preferred project is to refurbish wards 21 and 22 of the Victoria Wing by April next year to provide 15 new beds, areas which currently provide dayroom and office accommodation.

A new temporary office building would be built to provide accommodation for those offices displaced by the refurbishment.

Director of Operations for East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, John Dell, said: "The Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale areas generate a disproportionate number of emergency medical admissions. This is due to a number of diverse demographic factors, and although primary care modifications and upgrades may ease or solve this problem in the long term, there is no foreseeable short or medium term relief."

He said despite a new 28-bed ward opening in November 2002, increased pressure to reduce in-patient waiting times and high numbers of emergency admissions had contributed to the beds shortage.

He said the way in which services are currently provided on the Burnley site carried risks for patients and the Trust including:

failure to meet Government access targets

patients not being nursed by staff who are familiar with their condition and treatments may be missed which results in delays

patients may occupy beds longer due to the sheer number of wards one specialities patients can be placed on

large numbers of surgical and orthopaedic patients faced with the late cancellation of their surgery due to lack of beds. Alternatively, the trust faced excessive costs as surgery had to be done in the private sector.

The preferred scheme would cost £375,000 to build and around £500,000 to run each year but Mr Dell said this would be offset if fewer patients had to be sent to the private sector.

He said other options such as building a new 32-bed acute ward had been ruled out because cost too much and it would be difficult to squeeze it onto the already overcrowded Burnley site.