PATIENTS are delivering their own diagnosis of what goes wrong during their treatment to help create a blueprint for improvement.

East Lancashire has become only the fifth area in the country to be allowed to set up a Pursuing Perfection programme.

Chief executives from Blackburn with Darwen Council, Lancashire County Council, the area's three primary care trusts, hospitals and mental health care bosses have joined the initiative.

Around 70,000 newspapers about the project are being circulated in health centres, GPs' surgeries and council offices over the next month asking for feedback. Patients and staff will also be invited to join focus groups to look at how services can be improved.

It aims to break down barriers between organisations to provide a quicker and easier access to services and avoid duplication.

It will start by focusing on management of emergency services, trauma and orthopaedic treatment and mental health services

Programme manager Declan Harte said: "We are committed to working together ensuring we all pull in the same direction.

"We will be a learning community striving to build on our successes and sharing the outcomes of our efforts."

Patients and staff are being given an opportunity to have their say in the way services are shaped.

Director of Social Services at Blackburn with Darwen Council Stephen Sloss said: "A key principle behind Pursuing Perfection is that it should not focus solely on systems and professionals but should seek improvements as experienced by the users. The users of services are the experts, they know what works for them and what doesn't."

The newsletter includes fictitious examples of how leaders expect the project to improve the lives of patients over the next few years as bodies work closer together.

For example, the father of a 12-year-old diabetic daughter who will in future be treated by an integrated diabetes care team. Care will be managed mainly at a local health centre by the team and all information relating to the patient will be put on a shared register.

When a hospital visit is needed, staff there can bring up the register. The integration means the patient will no longer have to be asked the same questions repeatedly at each attendance and means less risk of unnecessary actions being repeated or important treatment notes being missed.

The initiative was originally developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in the USA and in England is being run by the NHS Modernisation Agency. Other areas developing projects include Bradford, Central Norfolk, Southwark and North and East Devon.