People have been urged to wear face masks if they feel unwell in new advice issued to try to stop the spread of flu.
Parents have also been told to keep their children away from school if they have a fever, and encouraged to urge them to wash their hands.
There are fears that high levels of flu, Covid and Strep A could overwhelm hospitals, amid warnings that patients are already having to wait four days in accident and emergency departments.
In guidance issued ahead of the return of pupils to school this week, Prof Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said: “If your child is unwell and has a fever, they should stay home from school or nursery until they feel better and the fever has resolved.
“Adults should also try to stay home when unwell and if you do have to go out, wear a face covering.”
NHS leaders have warned that the health service is in the grip of a “twindemic”, with soaring flu admissions and Covid cases impacting staff absences.
The number of patients in hospital with flu has surged seven-fold in a month, the latest data show.
A senior medic warned on Monday that the current situation in A&E is “unbearable” and “worse than it has ever been”.
Dr Tim Cooksley, the president of the Society for Acute Medicine, told Sky News: “This situation is much worse than we experienced under the Covid pandemic at its peak.”
He called for “urgent action” to manage the situation, with more than a dozen NHS trusts and ambulance services having declared critical incidents over the festive period.
The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, which covers counties in North Wales, declared a critical incident on Monday after it was inundated with people needing emergency care, leading to a shortage of beds and long waiting times.
The board cancelled all planned procedures and appointments Tuesday, except for those deemed the most urgent.
The advice on masks comes after a senior doctor warned that patients are waiting up to four days in accident and emergency departments to be admitted to hospital when previously it would have taken four hours.
Dr Ian Higginson, the vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said the waits currently being experienced by patients were “appalling”, adding: “We’re hearing of patients who are in our emergency departments waiting to be admitted now for up to four days. It used to be four hours.”
It comes after the RCEM said that between 300 and 500 people are dying each week as a result of delays to urgent and emergency care. Dr Higginson defended the claim on Monday after NHS England said it did not “recognise” the figures.
Patients across the country are reporting long waits for ambulances and in A&E departments.
A 90-year-old woman in Torbay, Devon, has been waiting more than 30 hours for an ambulance after she slipped and fell on New Year’s Eve, her son told the BBC.
Andrew Macfarlane, her son, said the local hospital is a 10-minute drive away but he had been advised not to try and transport her himself, in case that caused her extra injury.
He said his mother has been bed-bound and in considerable pain since her fall.
He said he appreciated that there may be patients in more serious conditions than his mother, but added: “A suspected broken hip, I would have thought, is something that would need to be – in someone of her age – seen to sort of sooner rather than later.”
A spokesman for the South Western Ambulance Service apologised for the delay, telling the BBC: “Our ambulance clinicians strive every day to deliver their best care for patients.
“But our performance has not returned to pre-pandemic levels partly due to handover delays at emergency departments.”
Last week, one in five ambulance patients in England waited more than an hour to be handed over to A&E teams.
The latest official figures show that more than 37,000 people waited at least 12 hours in A&E in November after a decision was made to admit them.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme on Monday that the public “no longer feel confident that emergency medicine will be there for them when they need it”, adding: “I think that’s the sense of jeopardy that is frightening so many people across the country.”
Daisy Cooper MP, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, urged the recall of Parliament and said: “The Prime Minister must declare a major incident now to put the NHS back on a pandemic-style footing amid soaring numbers of deaths.”
