As many as 500 people could be dying each week because of delays to emergency care, a leading doctor warned yesterday, calling for a reset of a system that is "unsafe and undignified".

And amid concerns that mounting pressures are now "equivalent" to the early stage of the pandemic, there are further calls for political leaders across the UK to declare a national NHS major incident.

Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine (SAM), said: "The current situation in urgent and emergency care is shocking. It is in a critical state for patients and it is an extremely difficult for healthcare staff who are unable to deliver the care they want to.

"The outcome must be a four-nation emergency strategy which results in short-term stabilisation, medium-term improvement and long-term growth - the grave situation we are in means it will be a long journey.

"Sustainable workforce and capacity plans are required urgently to boost morale among staff and patients - as we have long called for - and we now need to see action."

It comes as poll findings suggest some people are resorting to make-do medical treatments because they cannot get a face-to-face appointment with a family doctor.

One in four adults was unable to secure an in-person consultation in their area last year, the survey found, with Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, which commissioned the research, branding it a "national disgrace" as he called on ministers to bring in another 8,000 GPs.

More than a dozen NHS and ambulance trusts declared critical incidents over the festive period, with a flu outbreak and rising Covid cases putting pressure on struggling hospitals.

Some critically-ill patients have reportedly waited hours for a bed, and ambulances have been unable to pick up those in need because they have been stuck waiting to hand over patients to hospital.

Last week, one in five ambulance patients in England waited more than an hour to be handed over to A&E teams.

The President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (REM) Dr Adrian Boyle said he believes that waiting times for December will be the worst he has ever seen.

Speaking to Times Radio, Dr Boyle said: "We went into this December with the worst-ever performance against our target and the highest-ever occupancy levels in hospital. We don't know about the waiting time figures because they don't come out for a couple of weeks; I'd be amazed if they're not the worst ever that we've seen over this December.

"What we're seeing now in terms of these long waits is being associated with increased mortality, and we think somewhere between 300-500 people are dying as a consequence of delays and problems with urgent and emergency care each week. We need to actually get a grip of this."

The interim chief executive of NHS Providers Saffron Cordery also warned the NHS is under "equivalent levels of pressure" as during the early stage of the pandemic.

Dr Cooksley said many of the current problems are not new and that a number of recommendations had been outlined. These included investment in primary care, social care, mental health health and ambulance services, alongside urgently expanded community care and support services.

Dr Cooksley said: "This is a time of crisis and there are fears this will worsen further over the coming months, so leaders must prioritise those improvements we can make now that will help us to navigate this turbulent period."

Call for major incident to be declared over national NHS as warnings issued over needless deaths