BOLTON Evening News readers reacted angrily to yesterday's front page picture of queues of patients waiting on trolleys.

One woman told the sad story of how her 93-year-old father-in-law was kept waiting on a trolley for 14 hours in Bolton's accident and emergency on Monday night, labelled one of the worst nights in A&E history by the town's hospital nurses.

The elderly pensioner 's family kept a constant vigil through the night in fear that he might have been ignored.

The woman said: "He was very well looked after but we stayed by his side all night because we didn't want him to get pushed to one side.

"But we saw some sights. There were a lot of frustrated people, both doctors and patients. We couldn't really believe our eyes."

Another Mr Roy Hough, of Deane, Bolton, told how he had his operation cancelled for the third time yesterday morning -- as an A&E patient took his bed.

Mr Hough said: "I've spent over £30,000 on private operations despite working all my life and paying taxes. Why should I continue to go private and pay for operations out of my own pocket?

"This is absolutely disgraceful."

Bernadette Leigh told how she heard doctors comparing yesterday's A&E department to Sarajevo -- and she took her 65-year-old mother, Margaret McClaments, home after waiting 13 hours on a trolley.

Mrs Leigh, of Bolton, said: "She had been waiting 13 hours before a doctor told us that she would have to wait all night on a trolley for a bed.

"We took her home because we thought we could look after her better. Luckily, it wasn't a matter of life or death. But the doctor had told us that he wasn't happy with my mum going home."

Director of communications for The Patients' Association, Katherine Murphy, said: "These government star ratings are not in the interest of patients. Patients want to know how a hospital is coping clinically, about the doctors and nurses, not the management."