Police are searching for a woman who answers only to the name of Barry Manilow after she disappeared from a hospital where she was being treated.

The 59-year-old fled from the Peter Hodgkinson Centre in Lincoln at about 1615 GMT on Wednesday.

She had previously been placed in care after she was discovered in a church carrying nothing but a plastic bag full of Barry Manilow records.

Police said the woman insisted she was the American crooner and talked about little else.

Extensive inquiries were made in an attempt to identify her and it has been suggested her name is Tanya Betts but this has still to be confirmed.

No relatives of the woman have been traced although staff at Lincoln County Hospital are continuing to investigate.

She is white and was wearing a green turban, black woolly trench coat, khaki calf-length trousers, calf-length boots and a red fleece when she vanished.

Police believe the woman may have some connections with Gloucestershire and officers there have been alerted to her disappearance.