Claire Wilkinson, aged 14, was one of two children from the same South Yorkshire school who died of the disease over the Christmas break.

Claire fell ill on Wednesday and was taken by ambulance to Rotherham General Hospital at 1530 GMT. But the hospital had no intensive care beds and doctors therefore tried to arrange for a bed in Sheffield six miles away.

However, that hospital had no free intensive care beds and the next nearest facilities were at the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham.

A specialist team from Nottingham was sent to pick the teenager up but when they arrived she was too ill to travel and so doctors had to stabilise her before she could be moved.

Pupils at Wath Comprehensive will get antibiotics

It was only at 2200 that Claire could eventually be transferred to Nottingham with her parents having to follow the ambulance in their car.

Claire, a pupil at Wath Comprehensive School in Wath upon Dearne, died on New Year's Eve.

Earlier, 15-year-old Adam Rawson had also died from the disease after being admitted to Rotherham General Hospital.

Explaining the decision to move Claire, a hospital spokesman said: "She was taken to Rotherham General but during her treatment the decision will have been made that the patient needed specialist paediatric Intensive Care Unit facilities, not everyone suffering from meningitis would need that sort of treatment.

Sheffield was then approached but that hospital was found to be full, the spokesman said. "Nottingham was then approached and they did have a bed available."

Preventative measures

The BBC's Richard Wells reports on the emergency immunisation programme

The 1,700 pupils at the school - once attended by Conservative leader William Hague - were to be given antibiotics on Sunday as part of a bid to prevent the spread of the disease. An immunisation programme will begin on Monday as a further safeguard.

The headmaster of Wath Comprehensive, John Godber, said he thought the response to the prevention programme would be "very good indeed".

Pupils would be coming in throughout Sunday and the antibiotics programme should be completed by early evening, he told Radio 5 Live.

Dr Tim Patterson: Disease thought to have been contracted through Christmas socialising

Mr Godber added: "We've postponed the start of term as a mark of respect to Claire and to Adam until Wednesday."

The Director of Public Health for Rotherham Health Authority, Dr Tim Patterson, said he wanted to reassure parents that meningitis is an extremely rare disease.

By giving the children antibiotics, he said, "we will be significantly reducing the carriage rate of the organism in that social circle and therefore reducing its ability to spread from person to person and hopefully reducing the opportunity for susceptible people to come into contact with it".

Vaccinations in Gateshead

Meningitis has also claimed the life of a 12-year-old in a separate outbreak in Tyne and Wear.

More than 2,000 pupils at two schools in Gateshead will be given precautionary antibiotics and vaccinations following the child's death.

Six children in the area have been affected with the disease over the last 10 weeks. Health officials there have sought to reassure parents and have said that the vaccination programme is purely a preventative measure.

Julia Warren: Only a few people are susceptible to meningitis organism

Julia Warren of the Meningitis Research Foundation said that the disease - which is cyclical - was going through a 50-year high and that increased incidence occurs every 10 to 15 years.

She said: "We're actually in an increased incident rate at the moment and we've been in there since the mid 90s. In 1997 we saw more cases of the disease reported than in the last 50 years."

Although 10% of the population carries bacteria that cause the disease, far fewer are actually susceptible to developing the disease itself, she said.

Symptoms can include severe headaches, fever, drowsiness, stiff neck, vomiting, confusion and a fear of light. A purple rash may also appear.

A free helpline is available for any parents worried about meningitis.