A Nottinghamshire hospital has close one of its wards following a norovirus outbreak.

Sherwood Forest Hospitals, which runs King's Mill, Mansfield Community and Newark Hospitals, closed the ward after nine patients contracted the highly-contagious winter virus which causes vomiting and diarrhoea.

The hospital has advised people not to come to A&E unless they have a serious or life threatening condition.

Chief nurse, Phil Bolton, said: ‘Norovirus is one of the most common winter vomiting bugs that we see at this time of year but we have not seen this many cases since the pandemic, when the virus largely disappeared while our social contact drastically reduced.'

The outbreak came after the trust warned its Emergency Department was treating double the number of patients it was designed to care for at any one time.

Bolton added: ‘This outbreak of norovirus is making an extremely busy time in our hospitals even more complex and challenging for our hardworking teams, which is why we're asking for the public's help by not attending our Emergency Department unless they absolutely need to.'