A&E departments at three local hospitals could be under pressure until April, a health bosses has predicted.

NHS Bury Clinical Commissioning Group chief officer Stuart North said the situation at Fairfield, North Manchester and Royal Oldham hospitals was improving but he thinks normal patterns would not return for a month.

At the start of February, the Bury Times reported that nine patients waited more than 12 hours for treatment at those hospitals — three times longer than the target time.

Mr North said: "The picture has improved since then and staff are working extremely hard under trying conditions.

"There is pressure on hospital beds for a variety of reasons and the challenge is to free up beds where possible."

One of those challenges, he said, is how health bodies work with local authorities, such as Bury Council, to ensure vulnerable patients have community care when they leave hospital.

Up until two years ago, the council arranged such care in all but a handful of cases, but that picture has changed.

Mr North said he would look at whether such performance data can be published so people can understand the situation in Bury and the surrounding areas.

Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust, which runs the three hospitals, appealed in December and again in January to avoid emergency departments unless they are extremely unwell.

This week, health charities the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation published a report warning winter pressures are "the new normal" all year round in places across the UK.

The report says: "Problems that were usually confined to the winter months are now increasingly being experienced at other times of the year.

"The four-hour A&E target has not been met nationally for over two years.

"Patients waiting to be placed on a ward after a decision to admit is also an increasing issue, with the number and proportion of patients affected in summer 2015 being worse than those in the winters of 2010/11 and 2011/12."