Almost two-thirds of all general beds at Milton Keynes Hospital currently filled with Covid patients, says worried boss

The Intensive Care Unit at the hospital is also 'nearing capacity' with patients who are seriously ill with the virus.

And hospital chief executive Joe Harrison has predicted the situation will get get even worse in the near future, before lockdown takes effect.

"We're expecting it to get worse," he told Anglia news. "We're expecting the numbers of patients in our hospitals with Covid to go up. We're expecting significant pressures to be continued for the next couple of weeks certainly."

Nursing unions say their members are scared and reaching the limits of their physical and mental health.

"People are telling me it is significantly worse. They are more exhausted now, more people are coming in . We're running out of beds we're running out of resources, we're running out of oxygen in some places because the systems are just not set up to be oxygenating that many patients," said Unison spokesman Sasha Savage.

The news comes as government research estimates one if 50 people - 2 per cent of the population - nationally currently have Covid. In MK, where the infection rate is significantly higher than the national average, this figure is likely to be one in 40 people.