Liz Shearer told the BBC her elderly mother spent more than 30 hours in a corridor on a hospital trolley because there were no bays available.

She says her mother, who is in a care home, was taken to Macclesfield District General Hospital after she collapsed on 3 January. Liz says when she first arrived at the hospital she found her mother in a bay but that she was moved to the corridor to give the space to someone else.

“When I arrived there were six ambulances waiting to offload patients,” she says. Her mother didn’t get moved out of the corridor and into a bay until the next day, she says.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life. It was like a Victorian workhouse. The nurses were saying how bad it is, and they were saying they just had to crack on with it.”

• The BBC has approached the East Cheshire NHS Trust for comment.

Yvonne Wolstenholme recently spent 13 hours in A&E because she was struggling to breathe.

The 60-year-old, who was sent there by her GP, told Rachel Burden on 5 Live Breakfast:

“It was absolutely heaving.

"Staff are snowed under, they really are rushing around like headless chickens and it's not because of a lack of skill, it's the lack of time to see individual patients.

“While I was there, there were at least eight ambulance crews waiting to hand over patients and obviously they are not out on the streets if they are there waiting.

"They didn’t want to be there; they wanted to be out being busy."

Hugh Pym
Health editor

It was voted trust of the year in 2024 and South Warwickshire prides itself on a relatively smooth running A&E department.

So, to declare a critical incident this week was unprecedented.

I was at the trust’s Warwick Hospital when the move was decided. The stats were bleak. Some patients had waited more than 26 hours in the emergency department and some had to remain in ambulances outside the hospital for up to three hours.

The trust has 375 beds, but at one point the predicted demand was almost 100 more than that.

A move to critical incident was inevitable. Managers told me this would reassure staff that the situation was unacceptable and every effort would be made to ease the pressure.

Specialist wards could be reassigned to emergency care. The local health and care system would be urged to step up efforts to move patients out of hospital.

A near 30% year-on-year increase in patients in their 80s and 90s had been seen. Flu and other respiratory problems were the major causes.

It is hardly surprising that an already busy hospital had to move into uncharted territory in its response.

Deep concern about rising flu ratespublished at 10:16 Greenwich Mean Time 9 January

10:16 GMT 9 January

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

There is deep concern at a senior level in the NHS about rising rates of flu.

As we mentioned a moment ago, the numbers in hospital have risen again over the past week, with nearly 5,000 beds occupied on average last week by patients struggling with the virus.

NHS England’s emergency care director Prof Julian Redhead says there are no signs of the outbreak letting up.

On top of that there are another 1,700 patients with Covid or the vomiting bug Norovirus.

While there are around 100,000 hospital beds in England, the fact so many (around 95%) were occupied going into winter explains why this flu season is causing the NHS so many problems.

Waiting times in A&E and for ambulances deteriorated during December, although the scale of the delays, certainly for ambulances, are not as bad as they were two winters ago, which was the worst winter for the NHS for a generation.

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

The number of patients in hospital with flu continues to climb, according to latest NHS figures in England.

Last week, the numbers averaged 5,407 a day - up from just under 4,500 the week before.

It comes as monthly data shows performance in A&E and the ambulance service deteriorated in December compared to the month before.

Average response times for immediately life-threatening category one calls, such as cardiac arrests, was 8 minutes 40 seconds. The target is seven minutes.

For category two calls, which includes heart attacks and strokes, it was 47 minutes 26 seconds. The target is 18 minutes.

But both are still much better than they were two years ago, when response times hit their worst ever level.

A&E units once again missed their target to see 95% of patients in four hours.

In December 71.1% were being seen in this time. That is broadly similar to what has been seen in the previous two winters.

The NHS isn’t the only health system facing challengespublished at 09:38 Greenwich Mean Time 9 January

09:38 GMT 9 January

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

There has been a huge amount of focus on English hospitals this week with 20 NHS trusts declaring critical incidents. But all parts of the UK are feeling the strain.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine in Scotland said earlier this week that hospitals there were “gridlocked”. But this is not just an NHS problem. Across Europe, health systems are grappling with one of the worst flu seasons of recent years.

There has been a surge of cases in France and Spain, with hospitals in the Valencia and Catalonia particularly struggling.

One of the key factors is thought to be low vaccination rates along with what appears to be a particularly virulent flu strain circulating this year.

And, with rates of flu still climbing in many countries, the fear is the situation could get worse before it gets better.

NJ Convery
BBC News

Image source, Tyler Foyle

Tyler Foyle, 25, from Amesbury, in Wiltshire, has a number of health conditions, including hypermobility spectrum disorder, which causes pain and stiffness in joints and means he has to attend hospital frequently.

But he says he now limits his trips to A&E, even if he needs help, because of the pressures NHS staff are facing.

“On my most recent trip to A&E at Salisbury Hospital I spent four hours waiting to be seen without any pain medication.

“I was crouched in agony with nurses just walking past.

“I understand the stress on the NHS, so I’ve been trying to limit how often I go to A&E, even if I need help, as I don’t want to add to the pressures they’re facing.”

• The BBC has approached the Salisbury NHS Trust for comment.

Your Voice, Your BBC News
David Trayner

Our live coverage of your experiences of A&E this winter is being driven by Your Voice, Your BBC News.

Your Voice, Your BBC News was launched to give our audience – you – more of a say in what we cover and to be part of the news.

Health and the NHS are consistently among the top topics you want to talk about, making up around one in 10 of the responses we get.

Among those, hospitals, GP services and waiting times regularly come up as a concern, and that was before the recent winter pressures hit.

We want you to tell us how hospitals declaring critical incidents and long waits in A&E and for ambulances affect you, whether you are a patient or an NHS staff member.

You can get in touch using this form.

Hugh Pym and Nick Triggle
BBC Health team

Image source, PA Media

This week the government has been setting out part of its plan to cut hospital waiting lists in England.

The waiting list currently stands at 7.5 million, with more than three million people having already waited longer than the 18-week target. Starmer said his plan would reduce the number of long waits by nearly half a million over the next year. Here’s what it includes:

• Expanding the network of community diagnostic centres and surgical hubs, to enable more treatment outside of hospitals
• Making it easier to exercise patient choice
• A new deal with the independent sector so that more NHS patients can be treated in private clinics, with a particular emphasis on joint operations and gynaecological procedures

Doctors' leaders welcomed the plan but expressed concern over whether there were enough staff to achieve the goals being set. You can read more about the government’s plan to cut waiting lists here.

NHS Trusts in areas including Birmingham, Warwickshire, Liverpool and Plymouth have declared critical incidents this week, citing extreme pressure on emergency wards amid rising flu rates.

A Birmingham nurse told the BBC’s 5 Live programme that Tuesday night was the worst she has seen in her time in A&E.

She says the waiting time for patients was more than 14 hours and on some shifts there were around 50 patients waiting for beds.

“A lot of the patients actually shouldn't be in A&E, they should be at their doctors, but because you can't see doctors, they just all come to A&E,” she says.

“There's not enough staff. It's just mayhem basically.”

She says she has seen a 90-year-old woman waiting for a bed for 24 hours, young people who said they were suicidal, and people collapsing in the waiting room.

The nurse, who did not want to be named, said the prime minister should "sit in the A&E waiting room for 12 hours and see what we have to go through".

Your Voice, Your BBC News

By NJ Convery

A patient who asked to remain anonymous tells the BBC they were given a hand bell to ring rather than a nurse call bell as they waited for treatment in a hospital corridor.

"I have type 1 diabetes and in late November spent 15 hours in a corridor at Leicester Royal hospital waiting for treatment.

"After attending A&E, I was moved to a corridor where I was given an area behind a screen with no plug to charge my diabetes sensor or even a nurse call bell.

"Instead they gave me a hand bell to ring for help.

"I was eventually told to leave as they couldn’t find me a bed.

"The whole experience has left me even more poorly and my whole family stressed out."

• We asked the trust responsible for this hospital - University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust - for a response and were sent the following by its acting medical director Gang Xu: "As with other trusts, we are experiencing extreme pressure on our services. This has resulted in patients waiting longer than we would like for their care and we sincerely apologise for this. If the patient wants to discuss their care directly, we would encourage them to contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service."

Nick Triggle
Health correspondent

A combination of flu, bad weather and flooding has made this a particularly challenging start to the new year for the NHS.

In the East Midlands, the ambulance service was reporting that they had around 500 patients waiting for a 999 response at one point – normally in winter its below 200.

In A&E huge delays have been reported with patients left to be treated in corridors and side rooms as staff struggle to find them a bed on a ward.

Staff are describing this as one of the worst winters for a generation – up there with early 2023 when waits in A&E and for ambulances were the worst they had been since modern records began two decades ago.

Already this week around 20 NHS trusts have declared critical incidents, but the number is climbing all the time.

Next up, let's hear from Ian Dykes, who was advised to go to King's Mill Hospital in Nottinghamshire just before Christmas, as he thought he'd had a mini stroke.

"There was a queue going outside. I was in there for seven hours,” says Ian, who lives near Alfreton, in Derbyshire.

"Everyone was just cramped in the waiting room and about seven of us in a corridor.

"Someone passed out in the waiting room. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not the fault of the staff – they are so under pressure.

"Finally I was seen and the doctor said it was Bell’s palsy and not a stroke.

"I had a cannula in my arm and I had to wait to get a nurse to take it out because there wasn't enough staff. It was crazy.”

• King’s Mill Hospital has been contacted for comment on Ian's story

Let's first hear from a man in Lancashire whose mother was in A&E for 31 hours.

Stephen, who doesn't want us to use his last name, tells us:

"My mother was in A&E for 31 hours recently and spent hours on a chair at Royal Preston Hospital.

"She was sent away three times between the 23 December and 2 January before finally being admitted. She is 67-years-old with a terminal illness and serious respiratory conditions.

"She now has a bed but it's in the renal ward despite having respiratory issues.

"The wards are not much better – they are dangerously understaffed and so they are burnt out and dismissive.”

A Lancashire Teaching Hospitals spokesperson said the health and social care system in Lancashire and South Cumbria was experiencing "significant demand" on services.

“Colleagues are working incredibly hard to treat people as quickly as possible, often going above and beyond the call of duty to ensure our patients receive the highest standards of care possible."

The trust encouraged the family to contact its patient experience team.

Have you had a lengthy wait in A&E lately? Or visited an NHS hospital and noticed winter pressures mounting on the NHS? Share your stories by getting in touch in the following ways:

• Email bbcyourvoice@bbc.co.uk, external
• WhatsApp: +44 7756 165803
• Upload your pictures and video
• Tag us on X: @BBC_HaveYourSay, external

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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".

We’ve heard of long waits with patients stuck in ambulances outside hospital buildings - and have also been told of the toll this is all taking on NHS staff.

As part of our Your Voice, Your BBC News project, we're dedicating this special coverage to hearing your experiences.

Please do get in touch by emailing bbcyourvoice@bbc.co.uk.

We'll also have the latest waiting list figures from NHS England this morning, so stick with us for that, along with analysis from our correspondents and of course stories from you.