BURY'S emergency service for children has become a victim of its own success.

The department at Fairfield Hospital where parents can see a doctor without an appointment is being pushed to the limit with a dramatic increase in patients.

Numbers have risen from 40 patients a month when the centre opened twenty years ago to a current average of 500 a month with figures jumping to around 900 during the winter months.

Dr Umesh Prabhu, consultant paediatrician at Bury Health Care NHS Trust said: "In some ways we have shot ourselves in the foot. This has been a highly successful service but the amount of people using it unnecessarily causes problems.

"We work to provide the best care for children in Bury but if there are children coming in when it is unnecessary it's going to put a lot of strain on everybody in the department.

"Also those children who are already in hospital will not get the care they deserve and which we want to provide."

"If demand continues at the present rate the service is in danger of breaking down altogether

"I would be grateful if parents could contact their GP in the first instance unless it is an emergency situation where the child is either fitting, unconscious, with breathing difficulties or unresponsive."

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