Patients due to have non-emergency operations or out-patient appointments at Slough's Wexham Park Hospital have been advised to turn up as planned despite the highly publicised national crisis - but the situation could change.

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust which runs the hospital, has been inundated with worried callers after reports on the news revealed that operations and medical appointments which were not urgent could be cancelled until February in some areas, as hospitals struggled to cope with emergency admissions.

James Taylor, head of communications at Frimley Health, said that it was useful to have the option of doing this but that it was not planned to use it at the moment.

He said: "We are keeping our heads above water and are advising people to turn up as planned unless they hear otherwise."

He said that the increase in vulnerable people suffering from flu which had affected many areas of the country had not reached Slough. But the problem of ever increasing emergency admissions in winter had.

He said: "We have an ageing operation and a lot of people have conditions from which they would have died years ago. But these conditions need managing and we are working with social services to try and manage this."