New data shows 784 patients a day were in hospital with norovirus in the week ending 19 January, up from 650 the previous week.

Levels are up almost 80% compared to the same period last year (438 in 2024) and are the highest seen in hospitals in any January since 2020.

While flu rates have dropped since their peak, they remained two-and-a-half times above last year with 3,833 patients in hospital with the illness on average each day last week, including 176 in critical care.

In addition, there were over a thousand patients on average (1,071) in hospital with Covid every day last week. While 29 children on average were in hospital with RSV each day - a fall from the previous week (51) - but numbers were still up 91% on last year (15 in 2024).

Hospitals remain extremely busy with bed occupancy at 96% with almost one in seven of these (13,710) taken up by patients who did not need to be in hospital and were well enough to be discharged – 125 more than the previous week.

Despite the pressure on services, time lost to delays in ambulance handovers continued to fall to 18,971 hours - down a third on the week before (29,956 hours) and on the same week last year (28,712).

Health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting said: ‘Despite the work we did to end the strikes and roll out the new RSV vaccine, hospitals up and down the country are still facing significant pressure and patients continue to face unacceptable levels of care this winter.

‘It's welcome that flu rates are starting to decline and ambulance handovers are improving – but we're not out of the woods yet.'

Interim chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery said: ‘Trust leaders will be hoping they've finally turned a corner on flu cases, but rates are still uncomfortably high with Covid-19 and RSV also piling on the pressure.

‘While ambulance handover delays are down by a third, demand for hospital beds shows no signs of easing. This challenging situation is being made even trickier due to high levels of delayed discharges, with one in seven hospital beds taken up by patients who were fit to be discharged.'

Liberal Democrat health and social care spokesperson Helen Morgan MP called for the immediate convening of the COBRA emergency committee ‘with an emergency plan brought forward to protect patients from this ongoing disaster'.

‘It is time for the Government to step up and grip this crisis in a way that they have so far failed to do.'

Rory Deighton, acute director at the NHS Confederation, said: 'We urge the Government to prioritise having better integrated care models, coordination between different healthcare services and investment in social care to improve patient flow. The upcoming 10-year plan and urgent and emergency care plan will need to address these issues.'