A STAFFING crisis among those working with tuberculosis is so widespread it has even spread to the pioneering East Lancashire service, according to staff.

A leading expert on the disease warned this week that the shortage of specialist staff was going to hit the country.

Burnley, which is two staff down, is due to merge its service with Blackburn, one of the few areas in the country which is fully staffed, from January 1.

According to staff, the shortage is due to health bosses not giving the TB service priority and under-funding nationally.

Blackburn has an average of 50 to 60 cases of TB each year, while Burnley is close behind with around 50. The area has one of the highest TB rates in the country because of poverty, poor nutrition and its ethnic make-up.

Professor Peter Ormerod, professor of respiratory medicine at Blackburn Royal Infirmary and a national authority on the disease, told a national conference the shortage could threaten work to try and halt the spread of the disease.

Professor Ormerod told the winter conference of the British Thoracic Society in London that staffing levels nationally had not changed since 1998, despite the incidence of TB being at a 13-year high.

"This data demonstrates the continuing under provision of essential front line staff to treat tuberculosis in the community," he said.

"The rise in tuberculosis has continued unabated since 1987 and we desperately need to address this staff shortage to deliver the care and service we need to halt the spread of tuberculosis across the UK."

A report to the society showed the incidence of tuberculosis had risen from 5,085 in 1987 to 6,797 in 2001, with no change in staffing levels.

He is due to head up the merged East Lancashire-wide TB service in January, which is currently advertising for two members of staff in its Burnley division. Blackburn is fully staffed with a nurse specialist, two nurses and a clerk.

Carol Brown, clinical TB nurse specialist based at Montague Health Centre, who is currently setting up the merged service, said: "Four out of five districts throughout the UK are actually staffed inadequately.

"From that you can tell that things are not being done properly. There aren't enough resources going into new staff, screening and in many areas the job is being added to health visitors' jobs, which is not good enough. You really need dedicated staff.

"It could become a massive problem. Unless there are nurses doing the actual work of making sure patients are taking their tablets, it becomes very expensive to treat.

"Burnley has no staff at the moment and we are currently advertising for two posts."

National guidelines state there must be one full time nurse to every 50 notifications of the disease.