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Red Cross volunteers and staff are to help the NHS in England cope this winter as it warns of a “humanitarian crisis”.

The charity – which works to help people across the globe – said it was helping people get home from hospital and free up desperately-needed beds.

But head of the British Red Cross, Mike Adamson, said extra cash was vital for health and social care to make the system sustainable.

The charity has already provided support to staff at the East Midlands Ambulance Service across Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln, Kettering and Northampton.

Mr Adamson said: "The British Red Cross is on the front line, responding to the humanitarian crisis in our hospital and ambulance services across the country.

"We have been called in to support the NHS and help get people home from hospital and free up much needed beds.

"This means deploying our team of emergency volunteers and even calling on our partner Land Rover to lend vehicles to transport patients and get the system moving."

Highlighting the need to improve social care, he said: "No one chooses to stay in hospital unless they have to, but we see first-hand what happens when people are sent home without appropriate and adequate care.

"We've seen people sent home without clothes, some suffer falls and are not found for days, while others are not washed because there is no carer there to help them.

"If people don't receive the care they need and deserve, they will simply end up returning to A&E, and the cycle begins again."

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: "The Red Cross being called in to help in our hospitals is just the latest staggering example of how the NHS is now being pushed to breaking point.

"For the Red Cross to brand the situation a 'humanitarian crisis' should be a badge of shame for government ministers."

He added: "The stark reality is the NHS is facing a crisis this winter and in need of urgent help from ministers. It's time Theresa May urgently faced up to her responsibilities and abandoned her policy of systematically underfunding our NHS."