SIR: Recently you printed a two-page spread showing the assets of the newly re-vamped hospital in Farnworth. May I list some of the liabilities.

The buildings are badly sited and badly planned, being centred around the showpiece of a clinical waste incinerator and with this working 24 hours per day and wagons delivering clinical waste and departing with toxic ash from early morning until late evening and public and private traffic running through the grounds day and night, it can hardly be deemed to be a centre for health with all the pollution the foregoing activities will generate.

This hospital will be the only one available between Hope, Salford and Wigan so, therefore, if there is a serious accident involving many injuries, one will have to pray the A & E Department will be able to conjure up all the staff required and also the beds needed. When the NHS was formed in 1948, Bolton had a Sub-Group 1 bed complement of some 900 for general medicine and midwifery. Forty-eight years later it will have 1000 beds with all the housing explosions and rising population from north Bolton, Little Lever, Farnworth, Kearsley, Westhoughton, Horwich, etc to cope with, therefore, it is essential that the Bolton Royal be retained as another hospital even if it has to be refurbished with private finance and leased back to the NHS. It is illegal to close this hospital without public consultation and that does not mean consultation with an invited audience as appears to be the case at present. Public means everyone.

Referring to Mrs Adam's letter regarding Mr Mike Chapman, is this the same man at the CHC? Why has he been offered this new appointment?

D B Waters

Winifred Road, Farnworth

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