VIDEO: Protesters at St Richard's call for urgent funds for the NHS

On the same day health secretary Jeremy Hunt visited Worthing Hospital, Thursday, January 1, members of Coastal West Sussex 38 degrees NHS Group gathered outside the Chichester hospital.

Bob Birtwell said: “The NHS is being terribly funded. The amount it receives per patient treatment has come down drastically.

"The only reason the Government can claim there’s been a small increase is because its workload has increased so drastically because of an ageing population.

"It now can’t cope with the pressure it’s under and we’re here to support the NHS and support its urgent need for more funding and more staff.”

Planned NHS spending is around £124.7bn for 2017/18, a rise of £2.2bn from 2016/17, official figures show.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "We know the NHS is extremely busy, which is why the Government supported it this winter with an additional £437million of funding, and why it was given top priority in the recent budget with an extra £2.8bn allocated over the next two years.

"Despite the extra pressure that comes with winter, the most recently published monthly figures shows hardworking staff treated 55,328 people within four hours every single day - 1,272 more each day than in the same month the previous year.”