I HAVE never been in the Royal Bolton Hospital as an in-patient, but they looked after my mother for a while on B2, and both of our children were born there. I have attended casualty a few times, both for myself and my children, and can say with hand on heart that all the medical treatment we have had has been first class, from the care of the nurses to the attention by the doctors, so I cannot understand where all these negative remarks about health care at this fine hospital come from.

I suspect that a great part of the problem is ridiculous targets not being met by the hard working medical staff. Then again, how much of these problems can be laid at the door of administration and management?

I recall that when Royal Bolton Hospital, then Townleys, had a hard working laundry and its cleaning staff were NHS employees, it washed and cleaned bedding for all the wards, as well as staff uniforms, and cleaning the wards and theatres was done by in-house staff. We never heard the term MRSA or C difficile.

These problems only seemed to appear after laundry was sent out to private companies and cleaning the wards was put up to private companies. Plus nurses started going home, and coming back to work, wearing their uniforms.

Bring back the good old days, and keep it all in-house.

Desmond Magurk Bolton