A swine flu information notice on the NHS Direct website EPA

MEMBERS of the House of Lords will attack their government peers over the handling of the swine flu pandemic today.

A short inquiry into the country's preparations, including managing pressure on the NHS, was carried out recently by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

The report is expected to criticise ministers for not setting up the National Pandemic Flu Service hotline for England earlier.

However, the Government denies the service was supposed to be up and running in April.

Health minister Gillian Merron said: "To say that the National Pandemic Flu service has been delayed, or that it should have been introduced sooner, is untrue.

"The service was set up at the request of GPs and the NHS and has been welcomed by them.

"Launching the service could only be done at the point where we moved from local outbreaks of swine flu to significant levels of infection across the country."

She said the service was activated when the number of PCTs reporting exceptional levels of activity dealing with swine flu jumped to 110.

More than 58,000 assessments were made by the new service on Thursday last week - its first day of operation - which was launched to help relieve the pressure on GPs and the NHS.

Merron said: "When I gave evidence to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, peers were interested to hear about the preparedness of the National Pandemic Flu Service which would be, as it has been, activated when it was needed.

"They welcomed this reassurance, the details of which they had been unaware."

Yesterday, campaigners called on the Government to suspend EU rules which say doctors can only work 48 hours a week.

As the UK grapples with swine flu, the pressure on the NHS is mounting and staff going off sick could have a further impact, according to doctors' pressure group RemedyUK.

It is calling for special measures to bypass the reduction in a working week from 56 to 48 hours, which comes into force for junior doctors on Saturday.

Other doctors have been working under the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) for some time.

Individual doctors can opt out of the rules and choose to work longer but there are calls for entire departments to be able to opt out.

RemedyUK, which has 8,000 members, warned that frontline doctors have a high risk of exposure to swine flu as a result of dealing with ill patients.

The impact of sick leave in the winter months calls into question how the NHS will be able to continue to deliver services, it said.

Doctors have been coping well but, from 1 August, many will have an extra day off work every week, it said.

Richard Marks, head of policy at RemedyUK, said cash had been spent on setting up the National Pandemic Flu Service for England, which employs people with no medical training.

"Millions have been spent on staff call centres using non-medical staff to diagnose and prescribe but at the same time they are reducing doctors' working week by one full day.

"It's probably the worst time in living memory to do this."

John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said the EWTD would put further pressure on the NHS.

He called for Government assurances that the restriction would be suspended if necessary.

"It could fizzle out or we could have a one, two or three-stage serious pandemic," he said.

"If that happens everybody, of course, will work whatever hours are necessary to keep the patients alive in a crisis.

"I trust that if that happens, the Government will not fudge it and they will actually say that the European Working Time Directive leaves no slack at all in the system and if there is a major crisis it should be suspended," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

The College has been hugely critical of the new rules, which, it says, could lead to "catastrophic" shortages of staff and hit training.

But Dr Andy Thornley, chairman of the BMA's junior doctor committee, said: "Abandoning the working time directive days before it's due to be implemented would be inappropriate given that most of the extra work is currently being done by colleagues in general practice."

A spokesman for the Department of Health said doctors could opt out, adding: "Medical directors will carefully review the local situation as the current pandemic flu outbreak continues."