The NHS is bracing for the worst winter on record for A&E waits, as hospitals are "pressurized like never before," according to health officials.

According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, this will be the worst December in terms of hospital bed occupancy and emergency care delays.

The warning comes as hospitals face increased demand from winter infections such as flu, strep A, and Covid. According to the government, it is "working tirelessly" to ensure patient care.
 
Several NHS trusts have declared critical incidents in recent days, signaling they are unable to function as normal due to extraordinary pressure. Adrian Boyle, the president of the RCEM, told the BBC that hospitals were "too full" and the situation was "much worse than in previous years."

The "most obvious marker" of this, according to Boyle, was ambulances parked outside hospitals.

According to NHS England data, 37,837 people waited for more than 12 hours in A&E for a decision to be admitted to a hospital department. This was more than triple the equivalent figure for November 2021, when an estimated 10,646 waited longer than 12 hours.

Over 90% of senior doctors said people had been waiting in their emergency departments for more than 24 hours the previous week.

Boyle remarked, "The gallows joke about this is now that 24 hours in A&E is not a documentary, it's a way of life."

He claimed that a "staff retention crisis," as well as recent nurse and ambulance worker strikes and a "demand shock" caused by winter infections, had strained the healthcare system even further.

Fears of a "twindemic" of flu and Covid infections were "sadly coming true," according to MP Steve Brine, chair of the Commons health and social care select committee. This was "very heavily weighted" towards flu infections, Brine said in his own interview for the BBC.

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