As corridor care has become the norm, safest option for those with flu symptoms is to contact GP or NHS 111 and try to stay home

As cases of flu rise sharply across the UK, the Guardian spoke to Amir Hassan, an emergency medicine consultant and the divisional medical director at Epsom and St Helier University hospitals NHS trust, who shared his views.

“We’re seeing increased numbers of patients coming through, a lot of them with respiratory-type illnesses. It means we need to try to isolate these patients and treat them – so they’ll come in with shortness of breath, [and a] cough.