Responding to the latest NHS England winter performance data RCN Executive Director for England Patricia Marquis said:

“This record-breaking winter has pushed nursing staff to the edge. Surging viruses have exposed workforce shortages and a lack of beds, whilst an underfunded social care sector is prevented from working with hospitals to discharge patients well enough to leave. Nursing staff entered this winter off the busiest summer ever. They are tired, understaffed and need support from ministers.

“Without new investment from government, patients will continue to be admitted to hospital only to be treated in corridors in unsafe and undignified conditions. When the health secretary says he cannot guarantee it will not be the same next winter, it is little wonder that so many new members of staff are becoming sick with stress.

“Nursing staff need to know there is light at the end of the tunnel. The government’s forthcoming 10-Year Plan must deliver the detail and funding to turn nursing and health and care services around.”

Ends

Notes to editors

Data from NHS England shows

• An average 1,160 patients a day were in hospital with norovirus last week -a 22% surge on the previous week (948) and more than double the same period last year (509).
• Pressure on hospital capacity remained high last week with 95.4% of adult beds occupied, and a total of 97,152 patients in hospital each day.
• Delays discharging patients to settings like social or community care continued to have an impact on capacity, with almost 1 in 7 beds (13,767) taken up by patients who did not need to be there.
• Flu levels in hospitals in England have fallen for the sixth week in a row. An average of 1,755 flu patients were in beds each day last week, including 87 in critical care.
• This is down 14% from 2,039 the previous week, when 96 were in critical care.