DAVID Cameron yesterday backed the campaign to keep ‘the full suite of services’ at East Lancashire’s hospitals.

The Prime Minister spoke out as he restarted the production line at an Accrington brickworks mothballed since 2008.

Mr Cameron hailed the re-opening as a sign that the ‘economic recovery’ was coming to East Lancashire and pledged plans for a Northern powerhouse around Manchester would not leave the area a ‘backwater’.

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He also praised bosses at the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust and gave his support to the Lancashire Telegraph’s ‘Save Our Services’ campaign to stop a national review moving seven key specialist treatments to Manchester or Preston. In 2013 on a visit to Darwen, Mr Cameron warned managers to turn round the troubled trust, which runs the Royal Blackburn and Burnley General Hospitals, or lose their jobs.

Since then the trust has come out of ‘special measures’ but now faces an NHS England review which could see it lose key services, a move opposed by trust bosses and doctors.

Mr Cameron said: “These are issues for local clinicians to decide but East Lancashire Hospitals should have the full suite of services to serve their local communities.

“The trust is meeting most of the targets they have to meet but they need to improve on Accident and Emergency.

“The money is there, but also to be fair to them, we need to make it easier for people to access their GP, access primary care services so we take some of the pressure off.”

Flanked by Chancellor George Osborne and extrusion line operator Mark Brennand, he restarted production at the Hanson Building Products works after a £2 million refit over nine months, creating 30 jobs.

Mr Cameron said: “The economy is moving. We are determined to see a sustained recovery in the North West and that’s why we’re investing in road and rail transport, by boosting universities and science and making it easier for businesses to take people on.

“And crucially for this brick plant we’re in now, we’ve got the housing market moving again.”

Tackled on concerns that the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ plans could relegate towns like Accrington, Blackburn and Burnley to ‘backwaters’ , Mr Cameron said: “The very fact that we’re here today seeing this brick plant restarting shows that these vital towns in Lancashire are not backwaters.

“They are a vital part of the North Western economy. The economy of the North West isn’t just the major cities.

“It is all these communities where we want to see jobs and growth.

“I’ve just pushed the button restarting a brick making plant that has been lying idle for eight years.

“Few things in the last few months have given me greater pleasure.”

Extrusion line operator Mr Brennand said of the re-start: “This is a once in a lifetime occasion - a dream come true.”