‘We don’t want to get into a position where we have to step down care for non-Covid patients’ – Prof Stephen Powis, NHS England

The latest government figures show that there were 18,950 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours, and 136 people have died, bringing the total number of deaths with coronavirus in the UK to 46,853.

The North West Ambulance Service has declared a major incident due to a high level of calls, further underlining the pressures in the system.

We spoke to the national medical director of NHS England, Professor Stephen Powis, and started by asking how much strain the health service was under.