The health secretary has said some patients’ experience of the NHS this winter makes him feel “ashamed”.

Wes Streeting said he had seen patients left crying and distressed and stuck in corridors, as hospitals struggle to cope.

It comes as a number of NHS trusts declare critical incidents due to exceptionally high demand in A&E.

NHS sources told BBC News about a dozen hospitals in England had declared major incidents, at one point on Tuesday.

Patients at one, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, were facing waits of up to 50 hours in the accident and emergency unit, as bosses warned rising numbers of flu cases and other respiratory illnesses had left them “extremely busy”.

Streeting told LBC he had seen A&E patients confused and crying out in distress, while others had been being treated in corridors, during a recent hospital visit.

“When I went in, they said, ‘You are here on a fairly good day – it’s not too bad today,'” he said.

“And as I walked around these conditions, I was looking around thinking, ‘This is a good day?”‘

Streeting promised to do “everything I can” to “make sure that year-on-year, we see consistent improvement”.

It would “take time” – but the government would publish an urgent and emergency reform plan “shortly”.

“In the meantime, I feel genuinely distressed and ashamed, actually, of some of the things that patients are experiencing and I know that the staff of the NHS and social-care services feel the same – they go to work, they slog their guts out, and it’s very distressing for them, seeing people in this condition, as well,” Streeting said.

He said he had also seen ambulance crews taking dying patients into hospital because there was no end-of-life care available for them in the community.

“It breaks my heart,” Streeting added.

Critical incidents were also declared in the East Midlands, Birmingham, Devon, Cornwall, Northamptonshire and Hampshire.

• The East Midlands Ambulance Service – which covers Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire – declared the first critical incident in its history due to a combination of “significant patient demand, pressure within hospitals and flooding”
• Health bosses have asked people suffering from flu, Covid, norovirus or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to stay away from the Royal Cornwall Hospital’s A&E department in Truro
• An influx of patients at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth has also prompted a critical incident
• Hampshire Hospitals said, due to “sustained pressures” at its Basingstoke and Winchester hospitals, it has also declared a critical incident
• University Hospitals Birmingham is another trust to have declared a critical incident with an “exceptional number” of patients with flu requiring hospital admission
• NHS services in Northamptonshire have also escalated their status to critical, due to what they say is ongoing demand, particularly at Northampton and Kettering general hospitals

Critical incidents, which can last for a few hours or several days, allow services to:

• recall staff from leave
• suspend non-urgent services
• receive support from nearby hospitals

They are not unusual at this time of year – about 30 hospitals declared them at one point at the start of 2023.

But NHS bosses have said the first week of 2025 has been very difficult, as high rates of flu, combined with cold weather and flooding, have caused a surge in demand.

In Scotland, doctors said hospitals had become gridlocked and were in the middle of a “winter crisis” too.

Dr Fiona Hunter, from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “We are running on hard work and goodwill, and our patients are receiving unacceptable, undignified and unsafe care in corridors and in the back of ambulances.”