Grieving relatives are waiting as long as two weeks for their loved ones to be buried as the flu outbreak sweeping Sussex is giving crematoria and cemeteries some of their busiest weeks for years.

Some are offering weekend burials and cremations, a step usually taken only during "epidemic" situations.

The news comes as Prime Minister Tony Blair was urged in the House of Commons to apologise to Sussex people for the current situation in the NHS.

Tim Loughton, MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, said: "In Sussex the bodies of my constituents are being transported around the county from overflowing hospital mortuaries in vans normally used to transport rubbish to the local tip.

"Will the Prime Minister apologise to my constituents and to all the NHS staff whom were caused great stress and suffering?"

Mr Blair accepted there were "capacity constraints" on the NHS but stressed Labour was investing £21 billion to improve facilities.

Stephen Horlock, bereavement services manager at the Woodvale Crematorium, Brighton, said the crematorium and seven cemeteries run through Woodvale for Brighton and Hove Council were doubling their burials and cremations.

He said: "We are very, very busy. We are opening our crematorium on weekends, a step we usually only take during epidemic circumstances, and are taking each weekend as it comes."

Ian Rudkin, registrar at Worthing Crematorium and Cemeteries, said services had started running there on Saturdays for the first time in its 32-year history.

He said relatives in the area faced an average wait of two weeks and this was the busiest he had seen demand for a decade.

He explained many deaths during recent weeks had involved flu complications like bronchitis and pneumonia.

He also said the festive season had increased the pressure with four holidays and many sick or elderly patients motivated to

'hang on' to see out Christmas and the millennium.

He said his staff were dealing with four

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burials a day compared with a usual average of one, and organising 22 cremations a day compared with between nine and 12.

Some scheduled services were also being cancelled because family members themselves had developed flu.

He said: "We can't rush services through. The last thing in the world we would want is to cause a family stress."

Ninety-six out of a possible 100 bookings have been made for next week at the crematorium and two cemeteries run by Eastbourne Borough Council.

Henry Branson, a spokesman for the organisation, said: "We are not at capacity but we are very busy. We are attributing it directly to the flu epidemic because there are no other factors which are particularly different from last year."

Latest official figures show around 197 people per 100,000 are consulting their GPs with flu-like symptoms, well below the 400 per 100,000 threshold used to define an epidemic.

The Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, has seen a 50 per cent increase in emergency admissions this week. A spokeswoman said there were a small number of beds free but these could fill up very quickly.

Eastbourne District General Hospital still has no emergency beds but a spokesman said the pressure was gradually starting to ease.

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