THE NHS needs an urgent £500million bailout to head off a winter beds crisis, it was claimed last night.

Labour warned of cancelled ops and patients stuck on trolleys without a fresh cash booster.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock was urged to “take his head out of the sand” and face up to the looming problem.

Last year the government gave hospitals a £355million winter pressure fund – but critics say it came too late to protect patients from bed shortages, longer waiting times and ambulance queues.

More than 22,800 operations were postponed during a one-month freeze on non-urgent procedures in January.

NHS chiefs also ordered commissioners to relax the rules banning mixed-sex wards. This resulted in 18,000 “breaches” in the past year – compared to 2,431 in 2014-15.

There were 186,000 ambulance handover delays over 30 minutes or more and bed occupancy was above safe levels.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth last night called on the government to match his pledge of a £500million winter bailout now.

He also challenged ministers to rule out any suspension of the guidelines on mixed-sex wards.

Mr Ashworth said: “Our NHS stands on the brink of a winter of cancellation and cuts.

“Every year the crisis in hospitals gets worse and worse, with millions waiting too long in A&E and thousands stuck on trolleys or even in ambulances outside hospitals.

“A long term fix for the NHS is well overdue.”

Last night Mr Hancock warned that a Labour government would have even less to spend on the NHS because they don’t know how to handle the economy.

He responded: “Our balanced approach to the economy means we can spend more on public services like the NHS – backing a long-term plan to guarantee the future of our health service with £20.5billion of extra funding by 2023-24 – and provide extra funding through winter. To reduce the impact that the colder weather has on the NHS this year, we are already taking early measures to prepare.

“Labour are not fit to govern and working people would pay the price with a weaker economy and less for the NHS.”