EAST Lancashire's hospitals have had a torrid time over the past month.

The trust, which manages both Burnley General and Blackburn Royal Infirmary, has received criticism for spending £500,000 on agency workers in just one month, exceeding its planned budget by 10 times.

This came after it was revealed that it was also more than £400,000 over budget in the first month of the new financial year.

But staff at the hospitals deserve credit after it was revealed that they have met government targets for hygiene, as have the local primary care trust, which manage non-hospital healthcare.

Nationally, one in four hospital trusts have failed to meet the required standard introduced to tackle superbugs including MRSA and Clostridium Difficile.

The superbugs problem causes a huge amount of concern to patients and their families.

If people are having to go into hospital they need to have confidence that where they are being treated is clean and they are not going to pick up a virus which could be worse than their original complaint.