IT was the parliamentary recess for 'Easter' last week and it has given MPs and peers a chance to spend some time in foreign climes or campaigning in the council elections. According to taste.

I was trying to scuttle round my leafleting patch on Sunday evening when I was stopped by an 82-year-old lady who came out of her bungalow to tell me a long tale about her dealings with the local hospitals last week.

What she told me was just another sad story to add to the many we have compiled in our Liberal Democrat dossier of problems at our main hospitals.

It is a familiar tale. Feeling unwell, being sent to Pendle Community Hospital for tests, then referred immediately to Burnley, more tests and a decision that she needed a bed.

Except the bed was at Blackburn.

On arrival at Blackburn by ambulance she had to wait four hours until a bed became free. Two afternoons later they said she had to go home because someone else urgently needed her bed.

But she had find her own way back to Colne.

When I met Jo Cubbon before she left for pastures new she said that tales like this do not amount to "horror stories".

Perhaps not. For younger, wealthier and fairly healthy people with cars and family members to drive them, it's just a minor inconvenience.

But for the local health service to treat so many more vulnerable and frailer people like this is a disgrace.

Burnley and Pendle Councils have both called - unanimously - for a review of the management of the East Lancashire Hospitals Trust.

But we don't want a "review" of the removal of A and E from Burnley to Blackburn.

That is sitting on the fence.

We want the full A & E service back in Burnley.