An angry dad is demanding an inquiry after claiming an emergency doctor failed to respond when his young son became ill.

Lee Golden claims it took nearly three hours for a private helpline company to contact an on-call GP - who then never visited or even phoned them.

Meanwhile Mr Golden's wife had taken their eight-year-old son Keiran to hospital.

The youngster is now recovering at home in Thorpe Edge from the mystery illness which left him with severe headaches, vomiting and bloodshot eyes.

Mr Golden, 30, a warehouse operative, of Sandholme Drive, said he would be making a complaint to the General Medical Council.

Mr Golden said he rang an out-of-hours phone number for an emergency doctor at 9.26pm on Sunday after his son woke up in agony.

He said: "Keiran had had a cold for a few days but he then started to get headaches, which got worse.

"We had been giving him Calpol, which was helping, but on Sunday he went to sleep for quite a while in the afternoon and woke up in the evening screaming in agony. His eyes were bloodshot."

Mr Golden rang the helpline and was told if his son began vomiting he should get emergency help straight away.

Minutes later Keiran was sick and his father dialled 999.

An ambulance crew examined the little boy, who had livened up, but could not establish what was wrong with him. They called the helpline number at 9.55pm.

Mr Golden said: "They were told the doctor would visit or ring shortly. I rang the emergency doctor number again at 11pm because I hadn't heard anything and they said we were on the list but would have to wait."

Keiran's condition had worsened again and he had a temperature, so Lee's wife, Sharon, 29, took him to Bradford Royal Infirmary.

After a four-and-a-half-hour wait the youngster was examined and his illness was put down to stress.

Mr Golden went on: "I waited at home and I rang the number again at 5am to ask where the doctor was.

"I was told it had been passed to the emergency doctor at 12.36am. The lady I spoke to said it was disgusting and she hadn't heard of a case like it where a child was involved."

Later that morning Mr Golden had still not heard from the GP.

He said: "The lady could not tell me why the doctor hadn't contacted me. It's a very unsatisfactory situation and very concerning. Surely children and pensioners should be a priority."

Mr Golden has since been told by the company, Primecare, that the call to the doctor was cancelled when they discovered Keiron was at the hospital.

"They said they had tried to contact me but couldn't get through.

"But it's simply not good enough."

He said the company had apologised to him and had promised to investigate.

Primecare's medical director, Dr Mike Sadler, confirmed he had apologised to Mr Golden and admitted the service had not been good enough. He said: "It was an extremely busy night on a Bank Holiday weekend - it was 20 per cent busier than forecast. But the delays were not acceptable and we apologise."