NHSE figures show figures close to a record high at an average of 1,134 patients a day last week down slightly from 1,160 in the previous week.
Health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, said: ‘These statistics show that we are still not out of the winter woods, and I want to thank all NHS staff for their hard work in the face of substantial pressures on the health service.'
Visits to the NHS.uk webpage on norovirus surged by 40% from 53,052 (12-18 February) to 74,324 (19-25 February) - more than double the number of visits for the same week in 2023/24 (35,522).
Pressure on hospital capacity remained high with 95.3% of adult beds occupied and a total of 96,807 patients in hospital each day.
The number of patients with Covid rose slightly on the week before - up 4% to 1,027 from 984. But the number of flu cases in hospital continues to fall with an average 1,656 patients in beds with flu last week, including 80 in critical care - down 5.7% on the week before (1,755).
Delayed discharging of patients to settings like social or community care remained high, with almost one in seven beds taken up by patients who did not need to be there.
Emergency services continued to face high levels of demand with 94,480 ambulance handovers. Staff time lost to ambulance handover delays increased by more than a fifth (22,796 vs 18,688 hours).
Interim chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said: ‘Pressure on emergency services continues to be a huge worry for trust leaders, with a worrying increase in staff time lost to ambulance handover delays last week. We need to do everything we can to get ambulance services back on the road so they can get to the sickest patients, fast.'
Rory Deighton, acute director of the NHS Confederation, said: ‘We look forward to working with the Government and NHS England on the 10-Year Health Plan and social care reform to address the problems of patient flow. We hope the plan will take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS and make better use of urgent care pathways that avoid emergency departments, ensuring that patient experiences of urgent and emergency care services improve ahead of next winter.'
