Shropshire health services are managing to cope under intense pressure but fresh appeals have been made to members of the public to do more to help themselves.

The county’s two A&E units have seen a “significant increase” in demand and GP surgeries, ambulance crews and the Shropdoc out-of-hours medical service have all been dealing with an increasing number of patients.

Many people are suffering the usual seasonal illnesses likes coughs and colds and flu-like symptoms but the extreme weather has also led to more slips, trips and falls.

Ed Rysdale, emergency medicine consultant at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: “We have seen a significant increase in demand for services lately as a result of weather-related injuries and seasonal illness.

“We are working closely with our health and social care partners to avoid unnecessary attendances at A&E and to avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital.

“This work will also help to support the timely discharge of people who no longer require the specialist treatment provided in an acute hospital.

“We would like to remind people they should only attend A&E departments for emergency, serious or critical conditions.

Trust bosses have thanked staff for the extra effort they have made to get into work in recent days.

Graham Fell, manager of Shropdoc, said it was “very busy” and had put on extra shifts.

Last weekend it dealt with about 3,500 calls, with more than 1,000 on Saturday alone.

“This is about 40 per cent up on what we were doing about three or four weeks ago,” said Mr Fell.

Dr James Swallow, regional medical director of Malling Health which runs two walk-in health centres at Telford and one in Shrewsbury for the NHS, said there had been an increase in activity but at present it didn’t appear to be busier than last winter.

The centres were seeing patients from across the age range.

West Midlands Ambulance Service has had its busiest day since regional records began, beating even the last three consecutive New Year holidays which are traditionally the busiest times.

Last Friday it provided 3,941 responses in Shropshire and the West Midlands, about 120 more responses than overnight on last year’s New Year’s Eve.

The ambulance service has had to stringently prioritise all 999 calls and despatch crews to the most serious cases first.