AN unprecedented shortage of hospital beds meant male and female patients were forced to share a ward - breaching strict government guidelines on the practice.

The trust in charge of Barrow's Furness General Hospital recorded 18 breaches of NHS standards on mixed sex wards in December.

Of these, eight took place at FGH, in Dalton Lane, while the remaining 10 were at FGH's sister hospital; the Royal Lancaster Infirmary.

Hospital bosses have confirmed the incidents were the result of an acute beds shortage at both sites which prevented patients on critical care wards from being transferred to a medical ward as they recovered.

Critical care wards can accommodate both male and female patients.

But a number of patients were forced to remain in critical care beds for longer than necessary because there were no other places available for them in the hospital.

At this point, the patients had to be officially recorded as a breach of guidelines on mixed sex wards.

Aaron Cummins, finance director and deputy chief executive at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We are starting to see the results of operational pressures within our monitoring. One of these was 18 mixed sex breaches, almost all of which occurred within critical care.

"It happened when we would have liked to step down people who no longer needed critical care but couldn't be moved because there were no beds.

"They then were not omitted from mixed sex guidelines and were recorded as breaches."

Those in charge of FGH, as well as the RLI and Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal, have been managing an increased demand for beds along with difficulties in discharging those who no longer need acute hospital care this winter.

It has resulted in longer waits for those attending accident and emergency departments as well as the cancellation of hundreds of elective surgeries.

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron suggested pressure on both the RLI and FGH could be relieved by opening an urgent care centre at WGH in Kendal.

Mr Farron said: "These figures provide further proof of the pressure that our hospitals are under.

"Patients are having to stay in mixed sex accommodation because the hospitals are operating under full capacity and as winter has set in, they have had to do their best to look after patients.

"The single biggest thing we could do to relieve the pressure on these hospitals is to set up a 24-hour urgent care centre in Kendal to allow more serious cases to be seen on site.

"It would relieve pressure on the full A&E units at Lancaster and Barrow and enable ambulances to get back out more quickly."