SENIOR ministers are considering whether to launch a review of the decision to axe Burnley General Hospital's accident and emergency department.

Health minister Ann Keen is considering her response to a letter from Pendle MP Gordon Prentice calling for an independent investigation.

Mr Prentice made the request in a bid to end the "destabilising effect" of regular allegations against both Burnley General and the Royal Blackburn Hospital.

For the past few months, Liberal Democrats in Burnley and Pendle have run a website in a bid to create a 'dossier' of complaints made by people.

They want to convince Government to hold a public inquiry into the controversial hospital shake-up which saw Burnley General downgrade to an urgent care centre with all 999 emergencies being sent to the Royal Blackburn.

This week, East Lancashire Primary Care Trust, which runs community health care, but is not involved in managing the hospitals, agreed to investigate the dossier of horror stories'.

But Mr Prentice said the list of allegations would be pointless' if, as the Liberal Democrats plan, most of the information is anonymous.

He called for any review to take in views of doctors and medical professionals, as well as the public, in looking at the option of returning the blue-light services to Burnley.

The councils have said they will meet with the East Lancashire Hospitals' directors when the new chief executive replacing Jo Cubbon starts work.

Pendle Council chief executive Stephen Barnes said the primary trust would look for patterns' in the complaints, but confirmed the anonymity would make health chiefs unable to fully investigate every complaint.

The PCT said its aim was to broker a deal between the warring councillors and hospital bosses.

Mr Prentice confirmed he had asked Ann Keen for the review and called for the matter to be addressed as soon as possible.

He said: "The sooner that is analysed the better.

"These things have got to be talked through issue-by-issue and item-by-item or they are pointless."

Gary Graham, acting chief executive of the hospitals trust, said: "We shall continue to work together with our primary care trusts to ensure that we find resolutions to any concerns raised.

"We encourage patients who have concerns about their treatment to continue to use the appropriate channel so that individual cases can be investigated and responded to appro-priately."