Ministers have been warned urgent action is needed to get the NHS through the winter after waiting times in A&E hit record levels.
Figures for the first week of December show 35,373 people waited more than four hours for treatment - the highest number since records began in November 2010 and 66% more than last year.
And 7,760 patients waited between four and 12 hours on a trolley for a bed on a ward - again the worst tally since 2010.
Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham said the situation was "very serious" and should serve as "a wake-up call" to the Government.
He said: "Ministers need to come to the Commons next week to tell us what measures they will be taking to take the pressure off the NHS and ensure our hospitals can get through the winter period.
"David Cameron has allowed A&E to sink into crisis and must now accept his responsibility to turn it around."
Dr Cliff Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine and an A&E doctor at the Taunton and Somerset Hospital, told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "As the figures show this morning, we are seeing record numbers of people attending our A&E departments and record numbers of people being admitted to our hospitals.
"It's rather too often like trying to get a quart into a pint pot. There's a real pressure on beds, particularly between the hours of about 10 o'clock in the morning to 10 o'clock at night."
Dame Barbara Hakin, the national director of commissioning operations for NHS England, told the same programme "The NHS is under a huge amount of pressure at the moment. We are seeing far more patients than we ever have before.
"But we are still making sure that 91 out of 100 patients receive their treatment - they are either admitted or discharged from hospital - within four hours, which is a really high standard of care.
"Of course we are not complacent. The standard we set ourselves was that it would be 95 out of 100 patients. We have got plans in place to ensure that as we go through the winter, our patients can still be seen swiftly and promptly."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "We know the NHS is busier than ever before, which is why we've given the NHS a record £700m this winter for more doctors, nurses and beds.
"The NHS has ensured there are plans in every area to manage the extra demand."
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