PENSIONERS and vulnerable patients across East Lancashire face longer telephone waits when jobs at an NHS call centre are axed, one of its nurses has warned.

People who need health advice over the phone will suffer because of the cash-saving drive to shut NHS Direct centres, Earby resident Jean Brown said.

And a top board member of East Lancashire's hospital authority has warned the cutbacks will put extra pressure on struggling A&E departments.

Nursing advisor jobs are among the 150 posts set to go at doomed centres in Preston, Bolton Chorley and Southport, a move Mrs Brown said will put extra pressure on the service.

Just 30 vacancies will be available at a new centre in Bolton and in Nantwich a town more than 60 miles from East Lancashire in Cheshire.

Patients call NHS Direct to get health advice. After giving basic details of their condition they are called back by a nursing advisor.

Mrs Brown, 48, of Linden Road, said: "I am worried this will have an effect and people will have to wait longer.

"We are talking mums with sick children calling in the middle of night because they don't know what to do and elderly people who are on their own.

"So many people use the service. I am busy every time I go to work and I work 30 hours a week.

"I am never sat there waiting for a call."

Mrs Brown works at a satellite centre for nursing advisors at Queen's Park Hospital, Blackburn which will not to be axed but "periodically reviewed" by the Government.

She said: "My worry is that nurse advisors are going to be reduced so more calls will be taken by people who aren't un-trained but aren't nurses.

"This worries me because they will have to take on extra responsibilities and make decisions when they haven't got 30-odd years of experience.

"Local knowledge will also be lost. Their call could be dealt with by a health professional anywhere in England."

Mrs Brown said long delays in getting back to people will put extra pressure on the area's A&E departments, one of the key problems NHS Direct was set up to tackle in 1998.

She said: "People will get frustrated at having to sit and wait for a call back and go to A&E."

This concern was echoed by Frank Clifford, a non-executive member of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, who has told managers: "The loss of jobs often means dilution of service provision to the public, it sure as hell does to me.

"These people are needed now so I would need some convincing that the closure of the unit is not going to cause difficulty."

The trust has recently struggled to meet a crunch A&E target to get 98 per cent of patients seen in four hours.

But trust chairman Christine Kirk said: "We have been told that it won't have a significant effect and we have to believe that is what is going to happen."

Bosses at NHS Direct have said the changes will not damage the service as fewer locations would mean "better support" for staff and a "standardisation" working practices.

Of the 12 centres set to close by 2008, eight are in the north of England.

The Preston centre is at the headquarters of Lancashire Ambulance Service in Broughton.