Statistics show that hospitals are already 94 per cent full, with four out of five critical care beds occupied, even before the spread of the Omicron variant began causing a big influx of patients.

The latest NSH data shows hospitals under intense pressure and has sparked fresh fears that the health service may struggle to deal with the coming surge in cases this winter.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “It is worrying that 94 per cent of hospital beds and 81 per cent of critical care beds are already full, given the new Omicron variant is in its early stages and has so far led to only a relatively small number of people needing hospital care. However, with infection levels rising rapidly, trust leaders are increasingly clear that they are likely to see significant numbers of extra Covid-19 patients over the coming weeks. What remains unclear is how many patients and with what severity of illness.”

The figures were contained in NHS England’s latest weekly batch of ‘winter sitreps’ data, and show that of the 90,702 adult general and acute beds in acute hospitals that were open in the week to 12 December, 85,558 (94.3 per cent) were occupied. Of the 4,016 critical care beds that hospitals had open, 3,246 (80.8 per cent) had patients in them. These are the beds that will be used by people left seriously ill by Omicron.

The data also showed that NHS trusts in England had to divert patients in ambulances to other nearby hospitals 28 times last week because their A&E was too busy to admit them. It happened nine times at University Hospitals Birmingham trust and eight times at Worcestershire acute hospitals trust.

This has also meant that record numbers of patients are having to be looked after by ambulance crews outside hospitals for long periods because A&Es do not have the staff or space for them to be offloaded.