MP Yasmin Qureshi challenged Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt about the Royal Bolton Hospital cancelled operations in the House of Commons this afternoon.

She said: "The Royal Bolton Hospital made provision for the Christmas period, but despite that it has had to cancel all routine operations, as well as elective operations in trauma and orthopaedics, until 1 February. What financial assistance will he give my local hospital, so that it does not suffer as a result?"

Mr Hunt said: "We did provide an extra £1.4 million to the hon. Lady’s local hospital before Christmas, to help it to deal with the immediate pressures, but let me deal with this issue of cancelled elective care operations.

"I agree with the shadow Health Secretary that it is a big deal for patients who are told that their planned procedure is to be postponed. No one minimises the distress that that causes, but last year and in previous winters operations were cancelled at the last moment, which is much more distressing and challenging for hospitals to plan around. The decision was taken this year to take a much more planned approach. We hope that, overall, fewer operations will be cancelled at the last moment, but we need to do this in a planned way.

Ms Qureshi stood up in the Commons after the news about the cancelled operations broke this morning.

Royal Bolton Hospital cancels all routine inpatient operations to make room for sick patients