Responding to the latest week of winter reporting data, from NHS England and NHS Improvement, the director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, Miriam Deakin said:

"These figures show the NHS is under sustained pressure, with a concerning increase in the number of NHS staff off work because of COVID-19.

"This is a particular worry because of the knock-on effect on patient care including efforts to tackle care backlogs and the ongoing demand for services.

"Given the high level of staff absences, trust leaders welcomed confirmation that patient-facing NHS staff and vulnerable patients will continue to have access to testing earlier this week. But concerns remain about the end of universal free testing for COVID-19 today and what this will mean for community infection rates, hospital admissions and rising pressures across the system.

"We can see that urgent and emergency care continues to be under particular strain with over a quarter of ambulance handovers delayed by 30 minutes or more, despite a fall in the number of arrivals to emergency departments.

"Bed occupancy remains steady, albeit at a very high level, and occupancy rates in critical care have also increased.

"We continue to be concerned about the number of patients staying in hospital despite no longer needing to be there, underlining system wide pressures, particularly in social care. Trust leaders are concerned that this challenge may worsen as dedicated, additional funding for 'discharge to assess' during the pandemic, which helped free up acute beds and supported flow through the system, ends tomorrow."