Nottinghamshire health officials forecast lower 2025 flu peak this winter
The UK's winter 2025 flu peak is projected to be lower than previous years - health officials say.
NHS providers are now starting to roll out their winter plan arrangements for hospitals and services in their areas to prepare for spikes in hospital admissions.
The winter season brings increased pressures on hospitals and health services as they deal with heightened flu, RSV and norovirus levels and more patients coming through the front door.
On December 12, 2024, Nottingham University Hospitals Trust dealt with around 30 per cent more patients with the flu in the QMC and City Hospital than it did on the same day the week prior.
Earlier that month, NHS England warned of a potential “quad-demic” over winter 2024, which included a 350 per cent increase in flu cases and an 86 per cent rise in norovirus cases in hospitals nationally from around the start to middle of December 2024 – compared to the same week in 2023.
But in a Nottinghamshire County Council Health Scrutiny meeting on Tuesday (September 23), a NHS official said the winter peak is “currently tracking lower” for this year.
Speaking about Nottinghamshire’s winter plan to the committee, Gemma Whysall, deputy chief delivery officer for the Nottinghamshire ICB, said: “The good news for us is that the peak is currently tracking lower. In the last three years the peak is showing it’s lower which is good.”
The data NHS providers use to prepare for winter illness demand is based on the Australia flu season – it is common practice for countries in the northern hemisphere to make projections off of this.
In a graph presented to the committee, of the last four years, Australia’s 2025 flu season is tracking lower than the peaks in both 2022, which saw around 30,000 cases, and 2024, which had around 28,000 reported cases.
Australia’s 2025 flu spike came slightly later than these two years but had around 21,000 notified cases at its highest.
This means the health service is expecting a moderate to high peak during the UK’s 2025 flu season.
Nottinghamshire’s ICB confirmed to the local democracy reporting service the lower Australia flu peak this year was due to school holidays resulting in a drop in flu cases for school-aged people between five and 19.
However, Ms Whysall said the service is “bringing some of the winter planning earlier” in 2025 as September has had higher numbers of patients in the system than expected.
She added: “Making sure our care home staff are reminded of the simple interventions that work, things like hydration and falls. We’ve actively been working together with health and social care to support care homes ahead of the winter.”
Additional beds will be opened in Nottinghamshire’s acute hospitals. Nottinghamshire Healthcare Foundation Trust – which is responsible for mental health services – has already reopened its Dove Ward in September 2025, giving 10 extra beds to help with increased demand in its services.
Ms Whysall continued that Nottinghamshire’s health system is “financially challenged” and said there “isn’t a pot of [winter] money this year” to help the service the season’s increased patient demands.
Councillor Joseph Rich (Ref) asked: “As there is no funding for the winter this year, will services be cut to cope with the extra pressures?”
Ms Whysall responded: “We’re not planning any cuts to services this winter, we essentially are trying to maximise what we’ve got – it’s essentially doing better with what we’ve got.”