Flu ‘tidal wave’ nonetheless rising as docs deal with sufferers in corridors and hospital gyms

The flu surge is still rising as NHS staff report pressures from the “quad-demic” as bad as at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hospital corridors are full of patients as new NHS data shows there were an average of 5,408 flu patients in beds in England each day last week, up 21% from 4,469 the previous week and nearly five times the number at the start of December.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England medical director, said: “It is clear that hospitals are under exceptional pressure at the start of this new year, with mammoth demand stemming from this ongoing cold weather snap and respiratory viruses like flu. It is hard to quantify just through the data how tough it is for frontline staff at the moment – with some staff working in A&E saying that their days at work feel like some of the days we had during the height of the pandemic.”

Last month Prof Powis warned the NHS was facing a “tidal wave of flu” while sickness bug norovirus and coughs and cold bug respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is also circulating at high levels. Alongside circulating Covid-19 infections it has been dubbed a “quad-demic” by NHS England with hundreds of vulnerable patients critically ill with winter bugs.

At least 20 NHS trusts have now declared critical incidents as services come close to being overwhelmed.

Professor Peter Friend, vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “We’re facing possibly the worst winter pressures in the NHS’s history, with warnings that things could get worse.”

Declaring a critical incident allows hospitals to seek help from other local health systems so all capacity is used, concentrate care where it is most needed and ask some staff to come back from annual leave to work.

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said patients are being managed in chairs “day and night” and physiotherapy gyms are being turned into wards as hospitals fill up. Dr Mashkur Khan, RCP regional adviser for south London, said: “Our physiotherapy gym has now been taken over for extra bed spaces and the corridors are full to the brim. Patients are often managed in chairs all day and all night.”

Dr Jacob de Wolff, RCP regional manager for north west London, said: “It is not uncommon to arrive at 8am in the emergency department to be greeted by a corridor full of trolleys. Some of these patients will have spent the night there, in bright lights and with no easy access to a bathroom.”

RCP clinical vice president Dr John Dean said: “Physicians tell us that they are being asked to provide more and more care in corridors and in other temporary environments. This is unacceptable and must end.” RCP vice president for Wales, Dr Hilary Williams, said: “Patients waiting in corridors is unsafe and undignified.”

Latest A&E data shows just 71% of people waited under four hours in A&E, when the NHS standard is 95%.

Professor Nicola Ranger, General Secretary of the Royal College of Nurses, said: “Nursing staff have never been more worried for patient safety as flu cases soar, sick and vulnerable people are lining corridors and many hospitals are declaring critical incidents. This is the brutal reality in an NHS which has too few beds, not enough staff and nowhere to discharge patients to.”

An average of 626 hospital beds in England were filled each day last week by patients with diarrhoea and vomiting or norovirus-like symptoms, up from 528 the previous week. There were an average of 72 children hospitalised with RSV, which in most cases causes the common cold but can be serious in the very young and old.

Saffron Cordery, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital bosses, said: “Winter has been brutal so far for the NHS and we’re not out of the woods yet. Things are likely to get worse before they get better.”

Average ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes were 47 minutes in December 2024, up from 42 minutes in November. They breached the current NHS England average response target for category 2 calls of 30 minutes for 2024/25.

Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, Clinical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Heart attacks and strokes are life-threatening emergencies. With each minute lost, the risk increases of permanent brain or heart damage and even death. We cannot accept such dangerous ambulance wait times as a new normal.”

However the elective waiting list in England continued to fall in November, down 61,413 to 7.48 million and the lowest it has been since May 2023. The estimated number of patients waiting for planned treatments and operations in November was 6.28 million.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “In the past six months, we have ended the junior doctors’ strikes so staff are on the front line, not the picket line, for the first winter in three years, and introduced the new RSV vaccine. But despite the best efforts of staff, patients are still receiving unacceptable standards of care.

“Although this winter’s campaign vaccinated more people than last winter, this strain of flu has hit hard, putting more than three times as many patients into hospital compared to this time last year. Annual winter pressures should not mean an annual winter crisis, which is why this Government is making significant investment in the NHS, undertaking fundamental reform, and acting now to improve social care. It will take time to turn the NHS around, but the fact that waiting lists are now falling shows that change is possible.”

Prof Powis said: “As the incredibly busy winter continues and hospitals clearly experience intense pressure, please do continue to only use 999 and A&E in life-threatening emergencies and use NHS 111 and 111 online for other conditions, as well as using your local GP and pharmacy services in the usual way.”