Health chiefs say lessons are being learned for the Millennium celebrations from a crisis in on-call health services in Bradford at Christmas.

Patients faced long delays getting hold of out-of-hours doctors as the flu bug struck at Christmas which had huge a knock-on impact on ambulance and hospitals.

The experience is being used to prepare for the Millennium holidays which will be longer and are likely to put more pressure on emergency services.

Fears are growing this could lead to major problems if revellers injured celebrating the turn-of-the-century and patients struck down with flu are combined with chaos caused by the Millennium computer bug.

Health, ambulance, police and fire chiefs will join officials from Bradford Council and public utilities for a paper exercise at the end of this month in Bradford to test responses to a variety of mystery scenarios as they occur.

Problems could range from a major incident at a bonfire to the meltdown of a Russian nuclear reactor due to the computer bug.

Richard Longbottom, senior planning manager at Bradford Health Authority, said the Christmas crisis had showed the need for improved co-ordination of out-of-hours GP services in the district for the Millennium.

"Arrangements were in place in terms of on-call services which had never really been tested to the level they were over Christmas and the New Year," he said.

"We've got to make sure we have better arrangements in place for the Millennium when celebrations are likely to be on a much bigger scale.

"The exercise will mainly test what communications there are between all the agencies for things which might not initially start out like a health problem.

"We have pretty much been assured there won't be any aircraft falling from the skies and the fire brigade and Council are aware of organised events over that period. But clearly there is the potential for a lot of people to have a drink more than they would normally and there could be bonfires and fireworks.

"We will need to sort out who needs to be on call, who needs to be working and who can go off and enjoy the holiday."

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