Incidents of A&E departments diverting patients to other hospitals rose by 75% at the end of November compared with the same period last year, according to new figures.
NHS England data shows A&Es implemented diverts 35 times between 25 and 30 November 2025, up from 20 occasions during the same week in 2024.
Diverts are defined as temporary measures used to give departments respite when they are overwhelmed, rather than for clinical reasons.
According to Helen Morgan MP, the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesperson, the figures show the scale of pressure facing emergency care.
Ms Morgan said: ‘These figures confirm what many feared: that this winter could break the NHS.
‘Patients face the prospect of totally overwhelmed A&Es, where vulnerable people wait hours and days to be admitted to hospitals.’
The Liberal Democrats have urged ministers to provide immediate funding for thousands of new hospital and social care beds, and ‘bring forward a rescue package for our broken GP services so fewer people have to turn to A&E in the first place’.
Last winter, multiple hospitals declared critical incidents due to high volumes of patients being admitted with flu and other respiratory illnesses.
The latest NHS figures also show that the number of patients in hospital because of flu was 10 times higher in the week ending 30 November than the same week in 2023, and more than 50% higher than 2024.
An average of 1,717 patients were hospital every day because of flu.
NHS England’s national medical director for urgent and emergency care, Professor Julian Redhead, said there was ‘no peak in sight yet’.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said that although the NHS acted earlier than ever to stem the number of flu cases, ‘this progress is being put in real jeopardy by the BMA’s leadership, whose reckless behaviour to time industrial action at the height of winter, will put more patients are risk and bear down hard on their NHS colleagues in the run up to Christmas’.
Also responding to last week’s NHS data, Daniel Elkeles, NHS Providers’ chief executive, warned that the NHS was facing ‘a tidal wave of flu’ alongside other winter illnesses.
Mr Elkeles commented that it was worrying to see cases at a ‘record high’ for the time of year and ‘still heading up’.
‘That’s alongside all the other winter bugs piling the pressure on the NHS,’ he said, adding that the prospect of further industrial action by resident doctors risked causing additional disruption. He urged both sides to return to negotiations.
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of The King’s Fund, warned the NHS was entering ‘the most challenging period of the year’.
She said: ‘In the recent autumn budget, the chancellor protected the NHS, but it is still extremely difficult to see how this funding settlement can deliver all the ambitious commitments the government has made to improve and transform the care patients receive.’
Ms Woolnough added that the latest figures underlined the importance of prevention and expanding community-based services.
She said the rollout of neighbourhood health centres announced around the budget was ‘welcome’, and while acknowledging that the centres would not help improve care this winter, she noted that they were part of the government’s wider plan to provide ‘more comprehensive, accessible and technologically enabled care’ away from a hospital environment.
‘These longer-term changes may mean that one day, every winter isn’t a crisis for patient care,’ she said.
It comes as resident doctors are to strike before Christmas, which NHS chief executive Sir Jim Mackey has called ‘reckless’.
