ENGLAND’S A&Es stood on the brink of collapse yesterday with record-breaking emergency admissions and a 255 per cent rise in patients waiting over four hours for a bed.

Official figures showed that 111,062 emergency cases turned up at A&Es last week, leaving buckling departments struggling to cope and forcing 10,000 people into lengthy waits for care — up 6,000 on the same week in 2013.

British Medical Association (BMA) chairman Dr Mark Porter warned that the NHS was now running on a “crisis basis” simply to meet normal demand and could be unable to deal with a major incident.

“Our resilience to a further crisis — a winter crisis, or anything else laid on top of it — is reduced because everybody is at the present time working the system flat-out to serve patients,” he said.

Labour shadow health secretary Andy Burnham accused the government of failing to heed opposition warnings on the growing A&E crisis.

“All over England, emergency services are stretched to the limit. Seriously ill people are waiting hours for ambulances to arrive or on trolleys in hospital corridors,” he said. “This is before the winter has begun in earnest.”

Health Emergency director Dr John Lister explained how a toxic cocktail of funding cuts and the collapse of social care, community and GP services were combining to “clobber” emergency care.

“Where are people supposed to go?” he asked.

“None of promised alternative services outside hospitals that are supposed to reduce pressure are taking shape.

“They said they were going to improve community care, improve GP provision, but nothing’s happened.”

Instead funding cuts were driving people towards A&Es, he said.

This could leave hospitals facing a financial black hole because of NHS funding rules.

Under current rules they are paid just a third of the full rate for every additional emergency patient they care for above 2009 numbers.

“Spending has been going up less than the costs and the pressures on the service and it’s now starting to show through,” said Dr Lister.

“Some hospitals that were comfortably in surplus for years are struggling to balance the books.

“Others have plunged deeper into crisis.”