Waiting times at accident and emergency departments over the last three months were the worst for ten years.
The latest quarterly figures from NHS England revealed that hospitals in England are failing to meet the target of dealing with 95 per cent of patients within four hours. In the three months to December, only 92.6 per cent of patients were seen within that time, the BBC reports.
Pressure on A&E departments this winter has led several hospitals to activate "major incident" plans.
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Gloucester Royal, Cheltenham General Hospital and Scarborough Hospital were among those to activate the emergency measure, which means routine operations and staff training can be postponed to deal with increased patient demand.
The latest weekly figures for the seven days ending on 14 December showed that only 89.8 per cent of people in England's A&E departments were seen in less than four hours. More than 10,000 people were left waiting for between four and 12 hours, while ten people had to wait for more than 12 hours to be seen.
Speaking to ITV's Good Morning Britain, Health Minister Norman Lamb said Britain's ageing population was piling pressure on hospitals.
"We rightly have the toughest targets in the developed world. We are not meeting them," he admitted.
"We are living longer, the pressures of people living with chronic conditions. We hear lots of reports from A&E departments of older people particularly turning up more ill than they have in the past."
Lamb called for a cross-party "fundamental review" on how to sustain the NHS. "It's too important to allow this vital service to be undermined," he said.
Dr Clifford Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said the pressure on staff was "intolerable", with around 20,000 more patients a week attending A&E than a year ago.
One reason for the increase was that the NHS 111 phone line was directing more people to A&E, he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"You shouldn't blame the patients when they have been following the signs and the direction they have been given," he added.
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