I HAVE just come out of the Royal Bolton Hospital for the third time in three months and I feel I must make a few observations.

The food, although not Cordon Bleu, is very good, considering the financial restraints the catering staff must be under. The staff of the Planned Discharge Unit are the best in any hospital I've been in -- although I understand there are plans afoot to close it. As you would expect, I would have nothing but praise for nurses and doctors (Dr Zaidi in particular). Ask the ancillary staff, cleaners and porters, who have to survive on the minimum wage with nothing extra for overtime or weekends -- should firemen be getting £200 a day? Despite having to bring up families themselves on a quarter of this, they remain cheerful and caring.

But I would also like to make two other comments. Why are we not charged for our food when in hospital? We would have to pay for it, anyway, if we were at home.

Secondly, why are patients (I would estimate there are between 10 and 20 at any one time), who are detained on the wards through alcohol or drug abuse, cared for so well for weeks on end and then, when discharged, return within weeks to be looked after again? They take up much-needed beds of the genuinely sick. If they come back time after time, why can't they be placed in hostels nearby, perhaps even cooking and cleaning for themselves? They are disruptive, sometimes violent and nearly all of them can be seen any day or night wandering about the hospital, sitting in the gardens and always smoking.

D Goddard

Westhoughton