I FIRST went to work in the Bolton group of hospitals in the mid-1960s, as a post-graduate student nurse at Bolton Royal Infirmary.

Some of my training was at the then Bolton District General Hospital, and I remember times when we had patients in beds in the corridors and down the middle of some of the wards.

In 1974, I was appointed senior charge nurse on D3 ward, where the consultants were Drs Tepper and Banerjee (now Professor, I believe).

That ward and D4 ward were the only two in the whole hospital group on take seven days a week, and were almost always full.

There were never enough beds within the group even then. In my opinion, the situation can only have been made worse when Bolton District General was increased in size and renamed the Royal Bolton to accommodate some of the beds lost following the closure of Bolton Royal and other hospitals.

There is much less money spent per head of population on health care in the North-west than in the South-east. That has been the case for many years, and should have been redressed many years ago.

Bolton's problem isnt bad management, it is chronic underfunding.

Closing beds and making redundancies will not help the people of Bolton.

If Bolton was given the amount of money it should have been, there would be no need for ward closures or redundancies and the scanner would be able to be used.

The fact that the hospital is struggling to pay its way is an indication of the health needs of the public who live within its catchment area.

To reduce the capacity to deal with that is, in my view, an utter disgrace.

Michael Wyatt

Bolton