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".

Multiple hospitals across the country have declared critical incidents as emergency departments continue to be swamped by surging winter flu cases.More than a dozen hospitals have declared the health system’s highest alert level as NHS England declared hospital flu cases are more than triple what they were last year,