A TOTAL of 360 more flu patients were admitted to the Royal Bolton Hospital this winter than the year before — a massive 3,600 per cent increase.

In winter 2016, just 10 patients were admitted because of flu and none died. But this winter it was 370, of whom 20 died.

Andy Ennis, the hospital foundation trust’s chief executive officer, revealed the figures during a presentation to Bolton’s Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) board.

The flu outbreak, which was a problem nationally, hit Bolton six weeks earlier than other parts of the country. Mr Ennis admitted: “We weren’t planning for such a severe winter.”

He revealed at one point a third of social services staff were off with the flu.

Mr Ennis was positive about changes that are being implemented in the hospital to improve performance and winter planning for the end of this year has already begun.

He said: “There are so many complexities but I’m more optimistic than I was last year.

“Some of the things we are doing are starting to have an impact, we’re starting to see the numbers move in a good way and I think it’s more than seasonal variation.”

Mr Ennis said patients were being seen and moved on from A&E quicker already, adding: “It’s not as fast as we would like but it’s going the right way.”

Mr Ennis had been asked to give the board an update on urgent care performance in the hospital after it failed to meet the four-hour standard for seeing patients throughout the year.

He replied that the last time the target had been consistently met was 2016.

This winter, on average, patients with any illness stayed in hospital one day longer than the previous year and and three percent more patients arrived at the Royal Bolton.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Ennis said: “We are developing our hospital and investing in our infrastructure, we did our first extension last year, providing us with five extra spaces (adult majors) in A&E, with further plans.”

Bolton’s Accident and Emergency department is the busiest in Manchester, said Mr Ennis, designed to deal with 90,000 patients, but in 2017/18 it dealt with 115,000 people.

A lot of work being done is to change people's attitude to going to hospital.

Mr Ennis said: “We need to get rid of the myth that hospitals are a place of safety — they are not.

"The quicker you are out, the healthier you will be.”

He reminded the board that for every day an elderly person stays in a hospital bed they lose a year of muscle tone due to inactivity.

Work is being done with a variety of services to make sure only people that really need it are admitted to hospital.

Forty per cent of those using an ambulance do not get admitted.