NHS staff are working 1 million hours of unpaid overtime every week, new analysis has revealed.

The most recent NHS Staff Survey shows nearly 270,000 NHS staff, including nurses, doctors and dentists, said they worked an average of 2.3 extra hours for free every week to help the NHS cope with chronic understaffing.

The survey was filled in by around 460,000 of the million strong health service workforce - meaning the true figure could be even higher.

Two thirds of NHS staff said their organisation hasn’t enough staff for them to do their job properly.

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: "The NHS is in crisis after nearly a decade of Tory cuts and it’s a disgrace that it’s dedicated staff, who always put their patients first, are having to pick up the pieces to fill the gaps left by this crisis made in Downing Street."

(Image: REUTERS)

He added: “ Boris Johnson ’s Tories have let the NHS, its staff and our country badly down by intentionally slashing funding for staff training and scrapping the nursing bursary.

“ Labour ’s NHS Rescue Plan will restore the nursing bursary and recruit thousands of doctors and nurses that the NHS clearly needs to end the Tory crisis. You can’t trust the Tories with our NHS and we can’t have another five years of this.”

Earlier Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted his party had to “do better” on the NHS after key figures showed the service was performing at the worst level on record.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock was accused of being "staggeringly out of touch" after he claimed on Thursday that the NHS was performing "better than it ever has".

Official figures showed a record 4.42 million people were waiting for treatment for longer than the 18 week limit.

"We have got to do better, I don't deny that," he told the BBC's Breakfast programme.