POOLE Hospital was forced to close beds at the end of January due to to the winter vomiting bug.

Norovirus outbreaks lead to the closure of entire wards as the illness is highly infectious, and the trust was obliged to close off 26 out of its 493 beds during the week of January 29 to February 4.

The previous week at Poole, only six beds had to be closed.

The Royal Bournemouth Hospital was not forced to close any beds in either of the last two weeks of January.

The bug is putting additional strain on hospitals nationwide, which are already struggling to find enough beds to deal with an ongoing winter 'crisis'.

Poole Hospital's bed stock was 97.6 per cent full on average during that week, according to NHS England figures, well above the recommended safe limit of 85 per cent.

In hospitals where the limit is breached there is a greater risk of patients receiving inadequate care, being placed on an inappropriate ward for their condition, or contracting superbugs such as MRSA, according to the British Medical Association.

The trust was forced to increase the number of 'escalation beds' in use from 35 the previous week to 46. Such beds are not ideal as they are typically placed in inappropriate areas of the hospital.

Bournemouth's beds were 89.5 per cent full on average during that week.

Poole Hospital also saw increased delays for ambulance transfers at the end of the month, with 456 arrivals by ambulance of which 34 patients waited between 30 minutes and an hour before entering the emergency department.

Four waited longer than an hour.

The Department of Health says ambulance crews should be able to hand patients over to A&E staff within the 15-minute target time.

Failure to meet this target increases the risk to patients and can delay ambulances from attending other emergencies.

At Bournemouth, 11 of 450 patients arriving by ambulance waited 30 minutes and an hour, and none for more than an hour.

Hospitals are calling on those with norovirus or flu-like symptoms to stay away until 48 hours after their symptoms have cleared up to minimise the risk of infection to patients.