I HAD a stroke five years ago and was taken to Darlington Memorial Hospital.

The initial diagnosis was that I hadn’t suffered a stroke so they were sending me home. My son insisted they were wrong, which they were.

After a few days I was sent to Bishop Auckland hospital where I stayed for five weeks.

They were short staffed. Some days you didn’t have physiotherapy or speech therapy.

There weren’t enough walking aids and the food was abysmal. I lost a stone-and-a-half.

From recent reports it would seem little has changed in five years.

G Rutherford, Darlington.