Security officers took over the check-in desk at Chelmsford's Broomfield Hospital when tempers became frayed over a long night's wait for treatment.

Parents have protested after their injured children endured the waiting ordeal at the accident and emergency department.

And GPs are saying that Red Bed Alert at the hospital in June is a new and worrying development.

Such alerts, common in winter, happen when all beds are full and 14 or more people need in-patient admission.

One family waited more than 10 hours for a nine-year-old girl's leg injury to be tended at Broomfield -- from 8.30pm last Thursday to 7am the next day.

During that time many people left, fed up with waiting, and tempers flared.

Mother-of-four Susan Holden took her daughter, Angela, in with gravel embedded in a leg. "We were just left for hours. Some people became very heated, particularly those with old people waiting for treatment," she said.

Mrs Jan Davis was there with her 13-year-old son, who was in agony with a hand injury while they waited through the night and into the small hours. "Contact and information to the patients was non-existent," she said. "I think it is a sorry situation for our front line service to be in."

A spokeswoman for Mid-Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust said that there were near record numbers seeking treatment on Thursday.

"Our staff were faced with 173 A and E attendances over a 24-hour period, of whom 58 were emergency admissions -- more than double the normal amount," she said.

"We are sorry that meant longer waits for some of our patients.

Priority must be given to emergency cases.''

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