FEW people in Burnley and Pendle will be sorry to see the back of Jo Cubbon, departing chief executive of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust.

On several occasions recently, I have visited a friend in Burnley General Hospital and been saddened and appalled at the state of the hospital.

Arriving at an empty car park, passing boarded-up and decaying buildings and then walking down eerily silent corridors brings home just what she and her colleagues have done.

Seriously-ill or injured patients now suffer additional 10, 15, maybe even 20-mile journeys to hospital and the totally unnecessary additional trauma and risk this entails.

Their families suffer the stress of knowing that should their conditions worsen, even assuming they have their own transport, it may take them half an hour or more to get to them, perhaps too late.

I wonder how many patients have died alone without loved ones to comfort them. Meeting patients' needs? I think not.

We now read that potentially life-saving medication is to be denied to heart attack victims, should they arrive at Burnley instead of Blackburn.

Whilst walking through the silent corridors at Burnley General you come across wall plaques commemorating the opening of a ward or facility.

Might I suggest that a suitable commemoration for Jo Cubbon's term of office would be a tombstone in the grounds of the hospital with the inscription: "Here lie the ruins of Burnley General Hospital, killed off by Jo Cubbon and her cronies."

ALAN THORBURN, Thirlmere Road, Burnley.