MORE money is needed if the Royal Bolton Hospital's accident and emergency department is to meet strict government targets, a hospital chief says.

Finance Director Colin Dunn says the investment is needed if the hospital is ever going to meet the target of seeing, treating, admitting or discharging 98 per cent of patients within four hours.

In February, 94 per cent of patients were seen within four hours. Rising patient numbers are being blamed.

On average staff see around 260 patients a day Monday to Saturday and 240 on a Sunday. However, those figures have risen to more than 330 during the week and more than 300 on Sundays in recent weeks. Ambulance admissions remain the highest in Greater Manchester, both because of the convenient location of the hospital and because the Highfield ambulance base is in the hospital grounds.

Mr Dunn is now set to bid for one-off investment to put the problems in the department right.

He said: "We will have to get this right because we aren't going to get two bites of the cherry. It is quite clear we are going to have to invest something to achieve the 98 per cent target. It has been a problem all year but we are beginning to perform better than we have done in the past."