IN February this year, I wrote in dismay at the paltry pay increase given to nurses and stated what everyone knew - that the suggested local 'top-up' was likely to be minuscule, despite the Government's rhetoric that it would equate to all other professions' rises.

An extra 0.58 per cent is the pitiful amount offered by Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Healthcare Trust to its staff while in the same breath the politicians vote themselves an obscene 26 per cent increase.

Nurses on the whole, I'm sure, don't expect a ridiculous pay rise, just equality and the recognition that goes with it.

They certainly don't deserve to be treated with contempt by their paymasters.

It can, then, be no surprise that the moral standards of this country are falling so far into decline, when the people elected to rule are callous cheats themselves.

NIGEL BARNES RGN, Beechwood Drove, Feniscowles, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.