GPs were told to only send patients needing urgent care to East Lancashire's hospitals because of 'severe pressure' on beds.

An email sent to practice managers said the hospital trust's emergency department and medical assessment units were struggling to cope with demand.

The message, sent by the primary care trust NHS East Lancashire, read: “East Lancashire Hospitals Trust have asked us to inform you that they are currently under significant pressure in ED and MAU with high levels of activity at both and severe pressure on beds.

“We would like to ask you to bear this in mind when considering your management plans with a view only to send ‘urgent referrals’ to ELHT.”

Hospital bosses said the problems were caused by a temporary IT fault last week, and that everything was now back to normal.

But Burnley MP Gordon Birtwistle said they were 'proof' that an A&E department should be reinstated at Burnley General Hospital.

The hospital campaigner said: “TIf people go to the doctor and they need treatment and they say we can't send you, they are under pressure, what are they going to do?

“The hospital in Blackburn was built for Blackburn. It wasn't built for Burnley and it isn't big enough to cope with the quarter of a million people who live in Burnley, Rossendale and Pendle.”

Mr Birtwistle said he had asked the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to investigate.

However, East Lancashire Hospitals said all systems were now working as normal.

Val Bertenshaw, the trust's director of operations, said: “A power surge in our computer server room last week led to severe communications difficulties across local health services, including long periods where clinicians were unable to access key patient administration systems for vital information such as pathology results, X-rays and patient records.

“The hospitals trust and primary care trusts implemented our joint plans for just this kind of incident and reverted to paper and telephone-based communications.

“This was of course slower than our usual computerised systems so there were some delays which led to bed pressures, but the hospital continued to function as normal.

“I would like to express my thanks to GPs for their co-operation.”