A TROUBLESHOOTER will be brought in to help reduce the high number of cancelled operations at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

The Government is giving the town's one star hospital £75,000 to employ a manager to cut waiting lists.

It was penalised heavily last September for having a large number of last minute operations cancelled.

Between July and September last year, hospital bosses cancelled 152 operations -- one of the highest rates in the country.

Now, all trusts who scored a zero or one star are being given the cash to improve.

Bolton was given the lowest star rating in the region for using a new system of bed cancellations which is not widely used across the NHS.

The hospital cancelled routine operations at the very last moment if beds were needed for emergency patients.

They argued this system was to make best use of facilities.

But they have since been forced to abandon this system to reach Government targets.

A spokesman for the Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust said: "This time last year, Bolton Hospitals Trust regrettably had a very high level of operations cancelled on the day.

"Since then, we have been working hard to address that situation and the position is much improved."

He added: "We welcome the announcement as we want to examine every possible means of improving the situation still further as we realise how distressing it is for patients and their families when there is a cancellation of any sort.

"We have been pursuing a wide range of innovative measures, looking for best practice to improve the efficiency and effectiveness or service for our patients."

The spokesman added that it was vitally important to patients and staff that the hospital continues to pursue further funding to address the difficulties it has due to a lack of beds.