AN investigation has been launched amid claims that parents are deserting hospitals in East Lancashire following the loss of a children’s ward at Burnley General.

Steve Spoerry, chief executive at NHS East Lancashire, has ordered an inquiry after being told that more child patients are being taken to Airedale Hospital at Steeton, after Deerplay children’s ward at the Burnley hospital was mothballed in December.

Last month he told a board meeting of the Meeting Patients Need programme, which has overseen the reshuffle of hospital services in East Lancashire, that he currently had no statistics to support the reported trend.

But he said that there was a perception that there was no service available at Burnley and NHS East Lancashire would be tracking activity, between the two hospital trusts, and reporting their findings back.

Hospital chief executive Dianne Whittingham, who has now left the trust, told the same meeting it was vital that the right message was given out to parents.

She said that providing ‘robust and effective’ health services in future depended on maintaining a high volume of patients.

Under current proposals the Royal Blackburn Hospital would deal with in-patient paediatric cases.

Burnley MP Gordon Birtwistle said: “It is pretty worrying if people are going to Airedale and I don’t know whether it’s because people don’t trust the Blackburn hospital.

"The children’s ward at Blackburn is overwhelmed.”

The MP remains hopeful that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, after considering the findings of an independent reconfiguration panel, will reopen Deerplay Ward.