AN East Lancashire health chief has blamed a GP recruitment crisis after Government watchdogs said some of her patients were struggling to find a local doctor to treat them.

The Department of Health this week issued its first-ever performance indicators for Primary Care Trusts -- and Blackburn with Darwen was rated below-average for access to a GP.

Trust chief executive Vivien Aspey said: "We are pleased with our performance in a number of areas, but some ratings are not satisfactory and we will develop a focused action plan to make sure that our performance in these areas improves."

She explained that the below-average rating for access to a GP was due partly to the number of vacancies in Blackburn with Darwen.

She said: "High numbers of branch surgeries and single-handed GPs also contribute to this particular performance rating. However, we are taking a number of steps to attract GPs to the area."

The trust is currently advertising nationally for 12 GPs and and it has set up a new teaching trust.

Miss Aspey pointed out the trust was above average for the number of children immunised against MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) and diphtheria by the age of two.

And although it was given an average rating for cervical cancer screening, this reflected a significant improvement on an historically poor position, she said.

The government survey also found:

GP access to the internet was 100 per cent, following a £1million-plus investment in computerising practices.

Management of diabetes was below average. Miss Aspey said: "Our performance is affected by the significantly higher than average prevalence of the disease in Blackburn with Darwen. We are currently working to develop a much more community-based service. Because we recognise we can provide better services, we have appointed a GP to lead work in this."

Management of asthma was below average. Miss Aspey: "We are disappointed we have not achieved a higher rating, especially as we have performed well in our work on smoking cessation. However, this is another disease which is particularly prevalent in Blackburn with Darwen.

"It is more common in areas of deprivation where housing conditions are poor and where people are exposed to high levels of road traffic fumes. Exposure to smoking, especially for children, also makes the condition worse.

A slightly below average rating for the management of prescribing antibiotics. Miss Aspey: "Given that historically we have had higher than average levels of antibiotic prescribing in Blackburn with Darwen due to high levels of deprivation, we are pleased with our rating. This represents an improvement that reflects hard work by GPs to reduce the number of prescriptions.