An emergency grant has been given to hospitals in Leicester in an attempt to reduce ongoing bed shortages.

More than �500,000 has been given to University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust to create a new ward to reduce the strain on Accident and Emergency.

The three hospitals in the trust have been on amber alert for two and a half weeks and have suffered other alerts before that because of bed shortages.

This has left patients waiting up to 10 hours in accident and emergency, while scores of non-urgent operations have been cancelled.

The money has been designed to try and speed up patients Hospital spokeswoman

The latest alert, which covers Leicester Royal Infirmary, Glenfield Hospital and Leicester General Hospital, has been caused by a large number of "very ill" people, said a trust spokeswoman.

"We are just seeing a sustained number of medical emergencies coming to us.

"The money has been designed to try and speed up patients being seen in the A&E department.

"We have had some very long waits and that is not acceptable."

New ward

The hospitals initially made a bid for �600,000 and have now secured �531,000 to help relieve the problems in the short term.

Some of the cash will be given to local GPs and social services.

Money will also be used to bring in new equipment to speed up testing in A&E and to pay for nurses to treat people with minor injuries.

The main bulk of the cash will be used to create a new 15 to 18-bed ward to take some of the pressure off A&E.

It is hoped the new ward will be open by the New Year but it is unclear at present where it will be based.