FAMILY doctors in East Lancashire are being tempted to send their patients out of town - for cut-price eye surgery!

Several NHS hospital trusts in the county are offering to do cataract operations for less than the going rate - with FREE transport to and from patients' East Lancashire homes thrown in.

And the Lancashire Evening Telegraph can reveal that one trust in Greater Manchester has told the district's 15 GP fund-holders, who manage their own purse-strings, that it will perform the surgery for just £500.

The East Lancashire GP fund-holders are now facing the dilemma of going for the cheaper option, or paying more for their patients to have the routine operation in Blackburn or Burnley hospitals.

The move by the NHS trusts also follows widespread public concern over the tragedy at Burnley General Hospital when three patients lost eyes after cataract operations.

The Department of Health later cleared health chiefs in Burnley of any fault in the tragedy. Dr Chris Ward, GPs' observer on East Lancashire Health Authority, confirmed that the mystery Greater Manchester trust was offering fund-holding patients free transport with the cut-price cataract surgery.

And he said the private sector was also making similar offers and promising to take on services as varied as health visitor provision and district nursing.

He said: "The rates offered for cataract operations are very variable, but these cut-price offers are from providers who are perceived as high-quality and who are not compromising standards in any way." From April 1996 there will be a huge increase in the number of GP fund-holders in East Lancashire.

Almost 50 GP practices will manage their own budgets and will be responsible for purchasing health services for more than 300,000 people - 60 per cent of the East Lancashire population.

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