Almost one in four people diagnosed with coronavirus could have contracted it in hospital, figures suggest.
Out of 10,150 patients being treated for the disease in hospital, 2,414 may have developed symptoms of the disease in wards while they were being treated for other illnesses, according to data from NHS England.
In the week to December 13 there were 8,337 cases in hospitals, of which 1,787 were likely to have been hospital-acquired, an increase of 35 per cent.
At one hospital 41 per cent of Covid-19 patients developed symptoms while receiving treatment.
Hospital-acquired infections are rising across parts of London, the southeast, and southwest, the northeast, Yorkshire and the Midlands.
Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that overcrowded
