Hospitals in England experienced the "busiest year on record" for accident and emergency (A&E), and ambulance services last year as flu continues to pile pressure on hospitals into 2025, new figures revealed on Thursday.
There was an average of 5,408 patients a day in hospital with flu last week, including 256 in critical care, meaning 3.5 times higher than the same week last year, according to new data by National Health Service (NHS).
In a statement, the NHS said that a number of hospitals this week have declared critical incidents, due to "exceptional demand" caused by the colder weather and respiratory viruses.
"Covid, RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus) and norovirus cases remained high with more than 1,100 patients in hospital with Covid every day last week, as well as 626 patients with norovirus-up almost 50% on the same week last year (424)," it said.
According to health authorities, frontline staff at hospitals were feeling the strain and some of their days at work this winter have been "similar to the days at the height of the pandemic.
"Monthly data confirmed that 2024 was the busiest year ever for A&E and ambulance services in England-with December recording the highest number of ambulance incidents ever in one month," NHS said.
Ambulance teams handled 806,405 incidents only in December, bringing the total number for last year to 8.94 million.
A&E services also experienced unprecedented demand in 2024 with 2.35 million attendances in December, bringing the total number of attendances last year to 27.42 million-the busiest year for A&E services ever recorded and 7.1% higher than in 2023 (25.61 million).
"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-all on the back of 2024 being the busiest year on record for A&E and ambulance teams," Stephen Powis, medical director of NHS said in the statement.
Noting that "incredibly busy winter" continues and hospitals experience intense pressure, Powis advised patients to only use 999 and A&E in life-threatening emergencies.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that although junior doctors' strikes have ended and they are on the front line not the picket line for the first winter in three years, patients are still receiving "unacceptable standards of care," despite the best efforts of staff.
"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," he added.
