Andrew Gwynne MP, Labour’s Shadow Public Health Minister, responding to the first weekly publication of NHS England’s winter situation reports, said: 

“These figures show an NHS under deep pressure with hospitals facing unprecedented levels of demand. 

“12 hospital trusts in England did not have a single spare bed available last weekend, and many more were dangerously full.

“The uncomfortable truth for Tory Ministers is that this is a crisis of their own making. Social care has been cut back, and too many older people are being forced to turn to A&E as they aren’t being supported in their homes.

“To make matters worse the NHS has been given less than half the amount of money this year to deal with winter pressures than it had last year.

“Ministers need to stop burying their heads in the hand and a get a grip on the crisis facing our hospitals this winter.”