“When the health service is pulling out all the stops to care for sick and vulnerable patients who rightly and genuinely need our support,” Mr. Stevens said, “it’s frankly selfish when ambulance paramedics and A. & E. nurses have to be diverted to looking after revelers who have overindulged” and who just need somewhere to safely sleep it off.

Mr. Stevens urged the public to take a more responsible and restrained approach to the health service, particularly over the New Year weekend. The health service has reported a huge increase in the number of people referred to emergency rooms in the first two hours of the new year because of excessive alcohol consumption.

Britain has one of the highest levels of alcohol misuse in the world. During the year, approximately 15 percent of people who seek treatment at emergency rooms do so in response to alcohol consumption, the health service said. That peaks on Friday and Saturday evenings, especially during the holiday season, when as many as 70 percent of the patients are there for alcohol-related matters.

To ease some of the strain on emergency services during this time of the year, the health service is looking to roll out more supervised units equipped with beds, showers, drips and rehydration. The units are being used in cities like Newcastle, Bristol, Manchester and Cardiff, and if they succeed in reducing pressure on emergency services this year, the health service will scale up their use in other major cities in 2018.

Researchers at Cardiff University, who are studying the effectiveness of the units in managing intoxicated patients, have found evidence that they had helped cut the number of assaults on health-service employees by 40 percent.