An additional 273 unoccupied beds were closed due to infection prevention and control, meaning the NHS lost a total of 43,938 bed days to norovirus last month.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said: ‘Despite the sunnier weather this week showing some early signs of spring, these latest figures show winter is certainly not over for NHS staff who are continuing to work tirelessly to treat thousands of patients with norovirus and other nasty winter viruses each day.'

There were 1,094 patients a day in hospital with norovirus last week, down slightly on the week before (1,134) but more than double the number of patients compared to the same period last year (470 w/e 3 March 2024).

In addition, there was an average of 1,546 patients in hospital with flu last week – including 74 in critical care – a slight drop compared to the week before (1,656) but still 16% higher than the year previous (1,333).

Covid cases averaged 1,101 each day – a slight increase from last week (1,027) as well as an average of 13 children in hospital with RSV each day, almost twice as high as last year (7). Around 49,223 staff were off sick per day, 8% higher than last year (45,629).

Bed occupancy rose slightly to 95.6%, with an average of 97,229 patients in hospital each day last week, over 1,200 more when compared to the same week last year (95,952).

Almost one in seven beds were taken up by patients who no longer needed to be there (13,430) with almost half of those patients having been in hospital for more than three weeks, because of delays discharging patients to settings like social or community care.

Ambulance teams lost 22,863 hours due to handover delays, an increase of two-thirds when compared to the same week last year (13,881) in part due to bed occupancy pressures. Emergency services continued to respond to high levels of demand with 93,467 ambulance handovers last week.

Rory Deighton, acute director at the NHS Confederation, said: ‘The writing has been on the wall for a long time with worn out staff doing their best to deliver timely care and support to patients in the face of record demand and pressure. But we cannot let this continue and urge the Government to set out actions to solve the challenges facing the NHS in the urgent and emergency care plan. We also look forward to working with the Government and NHS England on the 10-Year Health Plan and social care reform.'