Winter pressures are mounting on the NHS. Several hospital trusts have declared critical incidents in recent days and the health secretary has said that some of the stories being told by NHS patients make him feel "ashamed".

NHS leaders have warned that the peak of the flu cycle has not yet hit, with February and March potentially worse for the health service.

Multiple hospitals across the country have declared critical incidents after emergency departments were swamped by a surge in winter flu cases. As of Tuesday evening, NHS England confirmed at least a dozen hospitals had declared the health system’s highest alert level as the rise in respiratory cases led to “exceptionally high demands”.

A number of NHS trusts in England have declared critical incidents amid "exceptionally high demands" on emergency departments. One trust said it is seeing "high numbers of older patients with respiratory problems exacerbated by the cold weather".

A health boss at a county's NHS that has declared a critical incident said its hospitals had been dealing with high demand for more than a month. The NHS in Northamptonshire said there was mounting pressure on health services,

Gloucestershire Royal Hospital has experienced a surge in demand recently, with dozens of ambulances pictured several times queuing outside A&E over the past seven days. Dr Ananthakrishnan Raghuram, chief medical officer at NHS Gloucestershire,