THE story of how a Royal Bolton Hospital electrician went home from work one day, went out for a meal, then later that evening met his death, is both terrifying and tragic.

It is tragic that a man in the prime of his life should be taken from his partner and two children when he was only 35 years old.

But it is terrifying to think that when tragedy struck, that Carl Johnson's poor partner was left trying to deal with the situation on her own. She was asked to take him to hospital by car.

There was some failure on the part of the North West Ambulance Service which meant the situation wasn't graded as seriously as it should have been. There were more paramedics taking a meal break than there should have been. This contributed to the family's feeling that they had been "enormously let down".

That feeling was partly based on their impression that medical services "can perform miracles these days". They do work wonders, they go above and beyond the call of duty every day.

But they have to work within the limits of the resources they are afforded. Since Mr Johnson's death, we are told £20 million more resources have been poured into NWAS. And as Bolton CCG heard last week, they are doing all they can to make sure their resources are concentrated on cases such as Mr Johnson's. We can all be reassured that NWAS is doing its very best to make sure that families do not feel enormously let down in future.