Hundreds of staff at Royal Cornwall Hospitals were off sick during Christmas week, new figures show.

A health and social care think tank said the high number of NHS staff absent on Christmas week across England is "concerning", and warned soaring flu cases mean absences may not fall in coming weeks with the NHS under increasing pressure.

NHS England figures show an average of 363 staff members at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust were off ill each day between December 23 and 29.

However, this was down from 376 in the same period the year before.

Further NHS Digital data shows 6,631 full-time equivalent staff were working at the trust in August, the latest month for which data is available.

It suggests around 5% of the workforce were absent during Christmas week.

Across the country, an average of 50,000 NHS staff per day were absent from work.

It was up from almost 47,000 the previous year, but down from about 60,000 in 2022 and nearly 72,000 in 2021 which were affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

These absences were due to sickness or self isolation with Covid-19.

Dr Billy Palmer, senior fellow at the Nuffield Trust, said the number of NHS staff absent from work on Christmas week is "concerning".

He added: "Staff absences can disrupt care for patients, increase costs and put additional pressure on those staff at work.

"Previous research has also established that staff who have been off sick are more likely to leave the NHS in the future."

Dr Palmer also warned soaring flu cases mean the number of absences is not guaranteed to fall in the next few weeks.

Across all NHS trusts that submitted data in the South West, an average of 4,596 staff members were absent each day during Christmas week.

Meanwhile, separate NHS Digital figures show anxiety, stress, depression and other psychiatric illnesses was the most reported reason for sickness in July, accounting for over 606,800 full time equivalent days lost and 26% of all sickness absence.

At Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, 2,988 FTE days were lost due to ill mental health in July, responsible for 25% of all absence.