STROKE victims were left shivering in their hospital beds after the heating system went off at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

Patients on ward H3 faced cold temperatures in the early hours of Sunday, July 1, after the heating stopped working for about five ho-urs, between 3am and 8am.

The 23 patients, who were mainly pensioners, wrap-ped themselves up in dressing gowns in bed to try to keep warm and nurses gave out extra blankets.

H Block is attached to the main hospital by a corridor.

Grandfather Earl Law said: “Nobody was very happy.

“It was like a gale was blowing through the ward. It felt like all the windows and the door was open.

“It was a ridiculous state of affairs.

“Everybody was saying they were freezing.”

The 64-year-old said that patients, including a 90-year-old former Bolton GP, were shivering in their beds.

“We were just trying to concentrate on keeping warm. The staff were cold too and they said they were struggling to get an engineer up. I rang up The Royal Bolton Hospital number from my bed to complain and then rang again an hour-and-a-half later.

Mr Law, who is the landlord of The Railway Pub, in Wareing Street, Tyldesley, has been treated in the Royal Bolton Hospital for the past two-and-a-half weeks after he suffered a stroke.

Staff, who waited until 7.30am to contact the on-call engineer, have since been told they could have contacted the site co-ordinator during the night to fix the heating.

The hospital’s head of communications, Heather Edwards, said it was not clear when the heating went off or why.

She said: “Our heating system on the wards is regulated so that if the weather turns cool, it should turn on automatically.

“At about 3am on Sunday, the night staff noticed it was a bit chilly but weren’t aware they could have contacted an on-call engineer.

“However, they used common sense and gave extra blankets to any patient who wanted one.”

She said the fault was promptly fixed in the morning and staff have now been reminded that the site co-ordinator is available at night.