IN a report (February 2) about the crisis in the A & E Department at the Royal Bolton Hospital which included the comments by Andy Innis, Chief Operating Officer at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, he stated that it was the first time that the Royal Bolton Hospital had declared a major incident.

That is incorrect. He is clearly unaware of the history of problems at the hospital.

I took a friend in there on more than one occasion between 2002 and 2004 when it was just as bad.

One day we went in at 3.15pm. It was absolutely chaotic with patients lying on trolleys and the staff fighting a losing battle. Shortly afterwards, A & E was closed to new patients and ambulances were turned away and sent to other hospitals in Greater Manchester.

The situation was so bad that some of those accompanying patients demanded to see John Brunt, the Chief Executive at that time, who was forced to come to the department to try to pacify everyone. I left my friend at 11pm and he was still waiting for a bed.

Such situations at that time were called red alert days.

The Labour Government removed John Brunt and replaced him with David Fillingham in September 2004 to sort out the financial problems and get the hospital back on track which he was successful in doing. He moved on and was replaced by Lesley Doherty, a nurse, and the hospital's finances went into decline again.

During the time that Cllr Cliff Morris was chairman of the hospital trust, his council introduced 24 hour drinking which brought in drunks and drug users to add to the problems of the A & E Department.

Meanwhile, the Labour Government's solution to these problems was to introduce targets and all the associated administrative paperwork without ensuring that they were feasible within their imposed financial limits.

In 2012 Monitor stepped in. Cllr Morris left as chairman and moved on to become chairman of the Greater Manchester Health Commission.

In a later report (February 27) Andy Ennis said that the A & E situation was not improving as well as that in surrounding hospitals and that Wigan and Salford are now delivering on a daily basis. That is partly because the Labour Government closed the A & E Department at Leigh Royal Infirmary with the result that patients who previously went to Leigh now come to Bolton instead of their nearest hospitals at Wigan and Salford.

It is unacceptable that 11 years after my experience nothing appears to have changed in A & E.

Labour was in power for 13 years during the good times and failed to resolve the problems.

R Swindells

Bolton