DOCTORS at a second Manchester hospital have demanded improvements in health care or threatened to stage a shutdown.

Specialists at Booth Hall Children's Hospital in Blackley have told managers the intensive care unit will have to close by Friday if a staff crisis is not addressed.

The threat of a temporary closure comes a day after the Manchester Evening News revealed how 12 senior doctors at the Manchester Royal Infirmary said they would turn away non-urgent ambulance cases from the accident and emergency unit because they are ashamed of the ''degrading and unpleasant'' service.

Now medics at Booth Hall claim the safety of patients could be at risk because of a shortage of specialists.

The group want the six-bed ICU at Booth Hall Hospital, Blackley, to be moved to the nine-bed ICU at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital at Pendlebury, until extra staff have been recruited.

They believe one 15-bed ICU should operate from the RMCH until two more consultant paediatric ''intensivists'' and two specialist registrars are appointed.

Bosses at the Manchester Children's Hospitals Trust which runs both Booth Hall and the RMCH will decide within the next few days whether to agree to the move.

But Dr Garry Hambleton, medical director of the Trust, said: ''There has been concern for many months about the situation. I was asked to move the ICU from Booth Hall in February and refused. We are working on solutions.

"We secured extra money about a month ago to recruit more doctors, but it will take time. Intensive care for children has developed rapidly and reached such sophisticated levels that consultants that are not intensivists feel they do not have the skills to work in ICU which is the root of this problem.''

Meanwhile the 12 doctors who threatened to turn away ambulances from the MRI accident and emergency units have been explaining their actions.

In a letter to the Central Manchester Healthcare Trust they demanded closure of the accident and emergency department to non urgent cases on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. They said 999 calls would still be dealt with.

One of those who signed the letter, Dr Francis Ballardie, clinical manager for acute medicine at MRI, said that emergency admissions, now running at 8,000 a year, had doubled since 1997 without any additional medical staff.

Hugh Lamont, spokesman for the NHS Executive in the North West said: ''There has already been a major expansion of the service. Management at the trust would like to open up more beds and would do so if it could recruit the nursing staff but in the meantime there is no question of the hospital closing the Accident and Emergency Department.''

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