A hospital boss has warned services are just about coping due to an "extremely busy" winter period.

It comes after reports of patients waiting long hours in chairs or hallways and health services struggling to cope with increasing numbers of visitors.

In the past fortnight Medway Maritime hospital in Gillingham declared a critical incident as well as telling people not to attend their emergency department unless it was life-threatening.

Kent and Medway NHS chief medical officer Kate Langford said: "It is extremely, extremely busy across the whole of Kent and Medway and in fact across the whole country.

"We're seeing a lot of people coming forward for care, which is what we want, but that is obviously putting pressure on our services.

"Hospitals are coping but having to work extremely hard to do so. What that means is if people can avoid going to emergency departments if it's not life-threatening that would be really, really appreciated.

"We're doing our very best to help people stay at home wherever possible, often now being monitored through our virtual wards."

Ms Langford said Medway Hospital, like most across the country, is experiencing a very busy winter period, which most predicted due to the increasing number of flu cases in Australia.

"Every winter is bad but this winter is worse than most," she explained.

"There are two reasons for that primarily, one is seeing a lot of flu cases, much more than an average year and secondly we're still dealing with Covid. There's still a lot of Covid out there.

"Although vaccinations has meant for the vast majority of people Covid is not the life-threatening illness it was, for the older people and vulnerable people it is still serious enough to take you to a hospital.

"We are seeing more pressure than is usual, even for the peak winter period."

The NHS chief advised people who are unwell to go to 111 first and to use the online service and websites to check centres or pharmacies which may be open and able to help.

Ms Langford urged people to be sensible this New Year's Eve to avoid putting any unnecessary stress on hospital staff.

She said: "We have got New Year's Eve coming up and people want to party and that's fine, but every year people end up in A&E because they've had too much drink and end up needing medical care.

"Frankly, our departments are really, really busy already, so please celebrate responsibly and look after each other to not put that extra bit of strain on the health services."