THE problem of the surge in demand for hospital beds during the winter months is a difficult one for health chiefs with limited resources.

For failure to keep pace with need leads to crisis situations that have been too familiar in previous years -- sick people waiting on trolleys in hospital corridors until beds in wards become free, operations being cancelled and delay and patients and staff suffering untold stress.

But the pressures brought by the increase in sickness that arises at this time of year -- especially among vulnerable groups like the elderly -- are predictable even if they vary according to the severity of the winter weather.

Patients and their families have a right therefore to expect that, however great demand for beds becomes, measures have been put in place to ensure that the crisis conditions of old do not recur.

It is an expectation that has been recognised politically, with the government realising that it suffers from a plunge in popularity whenever patient-filled trolleys crowd hospital corridors. And, as it should, it has responded by making large amounts of 'winter' money available to the NHS to ensure extra provision and staffing is available. And extra funding has also been given to local authority social services departments to enable convalescent elderly people to be cared for in the community instead of occupying hospital beds that are needed people who are more ill than they are.

Thus we see our hospital trusts in East Lancashire having an extra £2.3million available -- roughly the same as last year -- to cope with their busiest time of year. Extra staff and beds are being laid on, bed space is being booked in private hospitals and non-urgent surgery cancelled to ensure staff and beds are available for emergencies.

It is forward planning that is vital -- even if all provisions may not be needed. Better that than the crises of old.