Nurses 'spending all day' treating patients in hospital car parks, ITV News learns
Video report by ITV's National Editor Allegra Stratton
Hospitals are becoming so pressed for space that nurses are having to spend whole days treating patients in car parks, ITV News has learned.
One nurse said the winter crisis within the NHS was becoming more and more "dangerous" as staff are stretched by increasing demand.
It comes after Conservative health minister Philip Dunne provoked anger in the Commons by suggesting there were seats for patients where by beds were not available.
His comments on Monday followed the emergence of pictures over the weekend suggesting patients in some hospitals were being forced to sleep on the floor.
On Thursday, figures will be published revealing how long patients waited for A&E treatment across December.
One nurse, speaking under the condition of anonymity, told ITV News there were times she had spent whole days treating patients in her hospital car park.
She said that increasing numbers of nurses were finding themselves in similar positions.
"The more those ambulances continue to arrive, the more you are being stretched," she said.
"It's something you certainly don't train for, and it's something you certainly have to learn on the job.
"You're doing the best you can with what you have.
"Even when you get on top of things, you always have on your mind what will be the next thing that arrives - how will we manage it."
Asked what she thought of measures now being taken to cope with unmanageable numbers of patients, she told ITV News it was "dangerous".
Last week, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has apologised after the NHS forced tens of thousands of planned operations in England to be postponed.