Medics are "bracing" themselves for the reopening of pubs, bars and cafés this weekend.
All bars, pubs, restaurants and cafés were asked to close on March 20 to help curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, pubs and cafés are able to reopen from July 4 for the first time since the lockdown was introduced.
But the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned medics are "bracing" themselves for the reopening of pubs during the crisis.
President Dr Katherine Henderson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We're bracing ourselves, I think would be a fair way to say it.
"It actually is quite serious, we have emergency departments having to work in a very different way than they did before because we have to keep vulnerable patients safe so we can't have crowded emergency departments.
"What we can't do is have a department that gets overwhelmed by people who are injured because they have got themselves into a fight, they have fallen off something, they have drunk so much that they actually need the health service's help."
Dr Henderson went on to reiterate the importance of drinking responsibly so as not to require an ambulance during these unprecedented times.
She added: "People have been standing at doorways clapping the NHS, well more important than clapping the NHS is using the resources responsibly and anybody who goes out and gets so drunk that they need an ambulance and they need to come to an emergency department is not supporting the NHS."
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