'There is absolutely a winter crisis', says senior NHS consultant

A senior NHS emergency medical consultant has admitted today that there is "absolutely a winter crisis" and said that the current NHS situation is as bad as he has ever known it.

Speaking to ITV News, Adrian Boyle said he believed "the NHS is going to have a very, very tough winter" and that hospitals would be facing a much more challenging time ahead.

He added the £700m which is being made available by the government to help the current NHS crisis "feels very much like a panic spend."

Earlier this week it was revealed that demand for Accident & Emergency services has already increased by 25% in some areas as the NHS prepared for the annual winter surge in patient numbers and NHS England Medical Director Sir Bruce Keogh said the service was"creaking and under the pressure".

Boyle agreed that the NHS's current situation was "certainly much worse than last year."

One of the reasons given by Boyle today for why the NHS is facing such pressure was the inability to get successfully treated patients back into social care beds, such as at nursing homes, which then caused the knock on effect of bed shortages.

He also cited the fact that hospitals were struggling to get people out of emergency departments into beds and said that hospitals around the country had been cancelling elective operations due to a lack of beds.