South Essex is facing an emergency care crisis after it was revealed that all beds in the Southend and Basildon intensive care units are full.

Southend Hospital's six beds, as well as six beds in the "step-down" high dependency unit, are all currently occupied.

Basildon Hospital's seven intensive care beds - including two created to cope with the extra demand - are also full.

The news comes after a nationwide survey showed just 27 intensive care beds available out of 1,400 in England.

Doctors have warned of potential crises if the millennium creates a surge in demand, as anticipated.

Chief executive of Southend Hospital, David Brackenbury, said the HD unit was normally used to ease pressure on the IC unit, as patients in recovery but still in need of extra care could be transferred there.

The staffing ratio for intensive care is one nurse to one bed, while the HDU ratio is one nurse to two beds.

He said: "Clearly, it's not a static position - hour by hour and day by day, patients are admitted and discharged, but it is tight.

"We are not unique - it is a common situation throughout Great Britain at the moment.

"I would ideally like to have some spare beds at this stage, but this is quite normal during the peak winter period.

"Some patients would normally be in intensive care following elective surgery, but we never plan to be doing elective surgery at this time of year anyway, so the unit is just dealing with emergency cases. This reduces competing demand."

Basildon Hospital's head of communications, Pat Trinaman, said emergency admissions were up by almost one third on the same period last year, but contingency planning, including deferring elective surgery, had paid off.

She said: "We are very busy, and our staff are to be congratulated as usual for working flat out, but we are coping."

Two refrigerated lorries have been brought to the Basildon and Southend hospitals to store an expected backlog of bodies over the millennium period.

Burials and cremations stopped on Christmas Day and will not resume until January 3 - the longest period without burials on record.

Meanwhile, hospital chiefs at Chelmsford had to turn away ambulances from its casualty department over Christmas because it was too busy.

Six ambulances arrived at Broomfield Hospital at the same time on Boxing Day and staff at the casualty department were struggling to cope with the number of patients.

Spokesman for Broomfield, Mark Purcell, said: "Within an hour the whole situation had cleared, but it was controlled chaos for a short period of time.

"There was an ambulance build-up and there was a lot of pressure on the accident and emergency department."

Mr Purcell stressed the incident on Boxing Day was not a case of a shortage of room as there were 30 spare beds in the hospital.

The hospital's intensive care unit, however, is currently full and staff are working on a contingency plan to take them into the new year.

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