It's the latest evidence of the intense pressure on NHS services throughout the United Kingdom.

More than 40,000 new infections were reported in the UK in the past 24 hours.

That's a record as the new variant of coronavirus spreads rapidly in the south of England, doctors reporting that the level of patient need is incredibly high.

Conditions in many Welsh hospitals are said to be very challenging.

While doctors in Scotland say that there is a danger that health services will be overwhelmed.

Our health editor, Hugh Pym, has the latest.

There was a stark message today from Hamilton University Hospital in East London.

Nurses and doctors air incredibly stretched, caring for very sick patients.

No one should underestimate the impact the infection can have.

One hospital in south east London has declared an internal incident because of the high number of co vid patients.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Greenwich said it was working with health partners and patients were getting the care they needed elsewhere in the capital, patient numbers continue to rise, with the variant of the virus found initially in the southeast of England spreading more rapidly.

Accident and emergency departments reported intense pressure.

Now I was on on Christmas Day and it was wall to wall covert.

So we see patients who are coming in who are have co vered symptoms.

But we also see other patients coming in with other problems who turn out to be covert positive.

On between that, there is a great deal of difficulty getting those patients through into the wards.

Unprecedented amount of work.

The medical director at One Big Hospital Trust spelled out what they were facing.

Things have bean really challenging over the last few days.

I suppose the best illustration for that is on Christmas Eve, we had about 170 patients with Cove in across our hospital sites on, but today we have around 242 So a very large increases occurred over the last few days.

The number of co vid patients in hospitals in England reached a peak in the first wave of nearly 19,000 in April.

Then it fell away during the summer before picking up again from September, and it's no above the level of that previous peak.

So what does that mean?

In practice?

Hospitals need more beds for co vid patients and in some cases, air moving staff from other areas to care for them.

Already, some less urgent work is being canceled.

Health leaders say the postponement of MAWR routine operations and procedures will become more widespread.

Sadly, it's inevitable.

That is, the infections rise and the admissions rise that actually we see disruption to other services were desperate.

Are members of desperate to keep that disruption as low as possible?

But unfortunately, some of our elective and plan services will be disruptive both in hospitals and in other settings as well.

Doctors in Scotland have warned that their health system is severely stretched on a concerned that the limited household mixing on Christmas Day will have spread infections.

Inevitably, there will be a cost for this.

One of the things that we're particularly concerned about here in Scotland is that the New Year festivities are will shortly be upon us.

Of course, there's no relaxation for those festivities, and it is extremely important that households don't mix unofficial at public health.

Wales has said that health services are under enormous pressure in an incredibly challenging situation.

A significant proportion of the NHS workforce in Wales is said to be off sick.

Ah familiar story in other parts of the UK Hugh Pym, BBC News.

Now teachers unions in England are warning that mass covert tests are under livable by the start of the spring term, which starts for some students next week.

Government has announced that all secondary schools and colleges in England would be able to test staff and students from the first week of January, but unions say a number of issues such as recruiting and training staff, are yet to be resolved.

Today Minister said they hoped that the staggered reopening of schools in England would go ahead in January as planned.

So let's look at the official figures on the pandemic in the UK so far.

They showed that there were 41,385 new cases recorded in the latest 24 hour period.

That's a record 357 deaths were reported of people who died within 28 days off a positive CO vid 19 test, taking the total number of deaths across the UK so far to 71,109 on joining Me once again to take stock of this evening's our health editor, Hugh Pym.

So to new peaks today, Hugh across the UK in terms of the number of new infections on across England in terms of the number of patients being treated for cove it, Yes, that's right, Hume or than 20,000 patients with Kobe in English hospitals gnome or than that peak seen in the first wave.

That's quite a sobering announcement.

In some ways, it's harder for hospitals now because back then, they were told to clear the decks, stopped doing any routine work on leave all beds, really for covert patients.

This time, that hasn't happened.

They've been expected to carry on doing the routine work, the operations and so on.

All those we've been hearing more and more hospitals or having to put that on hold, we should also make the point that one reason there are so many patients with covert and hospitals is bluntly they might not have survived before, but because treatment is better now, their arm or therapies, they are still alive.

But they are needing more care and therefore they need hospital beds.

Now, as for case numbers, that's more than this very big number 41,000, a big increase.

And yes, there's been a bit of a delay in reporting new cases from the weekend.

But even so, officials say that is a significant increase.

Public health England have said there is growing concern now about these case numbers, particularly what they mean for hospital admissions in the future.

Because, sadly, some of the people who reported in that number will become seriously ill on go into hospital on add to the pressure on hospitals at the busiest time in January in the new year.

So we've got this very big number now reflecting infections a couple of weeks ago.

The pressure seems likely only to build from here.

So, of course, everyone is hoping firm or good news on the vaccine to come in the weeks ahead.