ONCE again the ravages that winter is set to unleash on our health service in East Lancashire loom large - this time demonstrated in the plan by health bosses to "buy" beds in private nursing homes to head off a shortage of them in hospitals.

There can be no dispute about the prudence of this combined move by the Burnley Health trust and the region's health authority.

Last year, an outbreak of influenza over the Christmas period led to admissions to Burnley General Hospital almost doubling and 73 medical patients filling up so many beds in surgical wards that 60 operations had to be postponed.

Yet wise though the forward planning intended to prevent another such crisis may be, the real problem is that there is no money for the purchase of these private beds.

The bill for extra winter care this year is expected to be more than £500,000.

The hospital trust or the health authority will have to find it from elsewhere in the budget.

The inevitable effect of that is cuts elsewhere in health care, possibly to the extent that waiting lists will lengthen and operations being postponed - ironically, a consequence these contingency plans are meant to prevent from being repeated this year.

Health bosses cannot be blamed for that.

They are right to see that people who need hospital beds this winter get them and that they are not denied this necessity by them being occupied by others who could be discharged but cannot be because there are no adequate places for them in the community.

So, this year, they are buying private nursing home beds to ensure that these patients can be moved out of critically needed beds in hospital.

Yet, if they are trying to beat bed-blocking with money they have not got, it is still not right that other patients must suffer for it down the line.

The purchase of beds in the community should fall on Social Services, not the NHS.

And if they have not got the money either, the government should provide it.

For that is where the fault lies in these winter woes - in the refusal this year of the government to give hospital trusts the special extra winter funding they have provided in the past so they can employ extra nurses and open additional beds.

The need is no different this winter than last, so why withhold the money this year and generate extra problems for the already-pressured NHS, its staff and managers?

This shortfall of £500,000 in the Burnley trust's area adds up to plenty of problems, as does the £650,000 bill for extra winter care that it was revealed earlier this month faces Blackburn area hospitals who again do not have the resources to pay for it.

They are both being forced to rob Peter to pay Paul while the government crazily plays Scrooge.

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