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Week after week trying desperately to paper over the cracks in the cash-strapped NHS takes its toll on hospital boss Lesley Powls.

The ex-nurse, who manages beds across five hospitals, said “It’s not like I don’t go home some days, walk through the front door and start crying – because I do.”

She is just one of the medics to reveal the tears and frustration at the way the NHS has become perilously overstretched .

Doctors warn hospitals have ground to a halt because of the lack of beds – with lifesaving surgery delayed or cancelled.

Theresa May yesterday rubbished the Red Cross claims of a “humanitarian crisis” in England’s hospitals. But evidence from medics in a TV documentary this week tell a different story from the PM’s denial.

(Image: BBC)

Lesley, site director at St Mary’s hospital in London, says: “It feels like all we do is manage beds but what we really do is manage people who need us to help them.

“I do the right thing all the time in this job, but it’s not always right for one person.

“I do the right thing for the hospital and that’s really difficult because that does mean there will be people who, today, we haven’t done the right thing for.” They are put on red alert when there are hardly any empty beds. It happens every few days.

On Friday it emerged that because of overcrowding A&E departments were forced to shut their doors to patients 143 times last month. The number in Christmas was 42 – a new record.

The BBC documentary will show the awful dilemmas faced by NHS staff.

Staff at St Mary’s in West London found their resources were so overstretched in the autumn that a flu epidemic this winter would have left them “completely stuffed”.

The problems are the same across the other four hospitals in the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust – which has allowed TV cameras in to film for the first time – and hospitals across the country.

(Image: BBC)

St Mary’s consultant surgeon George Reese is shown being put on hold for an operation on a cancer victim because there is no available bed in the high dependency unit for the patient to recuperate.

He says: “Beds are so bad... it seems rare you can actually do an operation.

“At some point somebody will be telling me whether we’re allowed to do any work.” Another surgeon, Richard Gibbs, says the situation is the worst he has ever seen.

He adds: “I sometimes feel I spend as much energy trying to organise and manage beds – in order to allow us to... do what we want to do, which is to operate.”

The picture is repeated around the country as whistleblowers warned of “hellish” conditions. A nurse at the Leicester Royal Infirmary said patients are being put at risk because of staff shortages.

(Image: BBC)

The nurse said: “Patients on oxygen are being cared for in corridors – no one should be in the corridor, let alone when they are on oxygen.”

At Stafford County Hospital ambulances were diverted away from the A&E department last week because of a shortage of beds. Hospitals in Essex, Cumbria, Bristol and Cambs issued pleas on Twitter for people to stay away.

It comes after two people died at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital after waiting for hours in corridors.

The BBC filmed its documentary in October and November. Dr Ali Sanders, chief of service for emergency and ambulatory care, said: “We’ve just had our worst 10 days on record. There’s nowhere in the hospital to move anybody.

“What’s happened in the last two years is the whole system, countrywide, has ground to a halt.

“It just makes us feel as though we are firefighting every single day.

“We are not unique at Imperial. We’re just struggling to keep afloat. Everyone’s working as hard as they can and I think they’re fed up of being told to be more efficient all the time...

(Image: BBC)

“When people are working this hard day in, day out, they get tired. You hope they don’t make mistakes.”

Dr Sanders added: “It’s felt on many days as though we’ve had the tipping over the edge of a cliff phenomenon where you get to a critical point and you can’t function for the admitted or the non-admitted because you are full.”

Yesterday director of medicine Professor Tim Orchard said. “Our two A&E departments continue to be very stretched and our beds are rarely empty. The whole NHS is under real pressure.”

In an email last night on the NHS, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told party members: “It is a crisis made in Downing Street by this Government. It is a national scandal.”

Hospital will be screened on BBC2 on Wednesday at 9pm.

Now hospitals need our care to survive crisis

John Ashworth: Shadow health Secretary

(Image: Getty Images Europe)

There is no doubt hospitals across the land are going through one of the most difficult winters on record.

They are overcrowded,

overstretched and underfunded.

Last month, a third of hospitals issued warnings that they needed urgent help to cope with the number of patients coming in.

Seven hospitals admitted they were unable to give patients comprehensive care.

And A&E departments turned patients away more than 140 times.

The health system is being pushed to breaking point.

And yet Ministers are pushing ahead with plans – drawn up behind closed doors – to cut the number of beds, ration treatment and close or downgrade A&E departments.

Labour will always support change in the NHS when it is in the best interest of patients. But when plans to shut an A&E department are made to plug a hole in finances, then that is not the solution.

It will simply push patients to other parts of the NHS that are already overstretched.

It’s time Theresa May took responsibility for the crisis facing the NHS on her watch.

I am calling on the Prime Minister to bring forward the planned £700million of extra funding for social care to ease the pressure on hospitals. And also to bring forward a new funding settlement for health and social care in March’s Budget so this never happens again.

The NHS has been there to care for us for nearly 70 years. It’s time for us to care for the NHS.