In Scotland latest figures show that the number of people with a flu-like illness has doubled. A similar increase is predicted in England and Wales.

In Liverpool hospitals have cancelled all non-emergency surgery to try and cope with a shortage of beds.

Some patients have had to stay overnight on trolleys while they wait for treatment.

In London all the capital's 275 intensive-care beds are full.

Poor uptake of flu vaccine

Health experts also say that the outbreak has been made worse by the fact that vulnerable people such as the elderly have not been vaccinated.

The Public Health Laboratory Service said the uptake was not what it should be in the high-risk groups.

The crisis offers an easy target for opposition politicians seeking to explode Labour's jubilant post-election promises of radical NHS reform.

Nineteen US states and several European countries are currently stretching their medical capacities to the limit as flu epidemics take hold.

Royal College of Nursing general-secretary Christine Hancock told the BBC that the problem lay not in a shortage of actual beds, but in hospitals having too few nurses to accompany them.

But Sir Alan Langlands, chief executive of the NHS, said he was confident people were getting the right care.

He said: "Anyone who will benefit from intensive care is getting that care from the health service."

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