A man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a car was driven on to the pavement in central London in the early hours of Christmas Day.

Four people were taken to hospital after the incident on Shaftesbury Avenue, with one said to be in a life-threatening condition.

Metropolitan Police officers were called to reports of a crash and a car driving on the wrong side of the road at 12.45am.

In a statement, police said the incident was isolated and not terror related.

A cordon is in place outside the Sondheim Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, which is the London home of the musical Les Miserables. Shaftesbury Avenue is at the heart of London‘s West End and the city’s theatre district.

Blood, a jacket, pair of shoes and a hat are visible on the pavement inside the cordon.

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Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy said the force “responded quickly” and arrested a man “within minutes”.

“It’s believed that the suspect was involved in an altercation at a nightclub prior to getting in his car and mounting the pavement,” he added.

Officers are appealing for anyone with information relating to the incident to get in touch.

A man with a knife was shot dead by armed police in Redditch after “several hours” of negotiations on Christmas Eve, police have said.

West Mercia Police were called to a property in Fownhope Close, Redditch, at around 2pm on Christmas Eve to reports of a man with a knife.

Police negotiators arrived at the scene in Worcestershire and “attempts were made to resolve the situation by engaging the man over several hours”.

But at 7.40pm the 39 year old was shot by armed police – and he was pronounced dead just after 8pm.

No one else was inside the property at the time, the force added.

A mandatory referral to the police watchdog – the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) – has been made and an investigation been launched.

West Mercia Police’s assistant chief constable Grant Willis described it as a “tragic incident”.

“We do not underestimate the shock and concern this may cause the local community and I want to reassure residents that we are following all appropriate procedures, this included making an immediate referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), as is mandatory and right,” he said.

“We will support their investigation, which will include providing all information we hold, including body worn camera footage.”

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Around half of accident and emergency departments, polled by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), have said they are “full to bursting” this Christmas.

The vice-president of the RCEM, Dr Ian Higginson, told Sky News’ Gareth Barlow on Christmas Eve that the situation for the NHS in the UK is “pretty grim” at the moment.

The group, representing emergency doctors, put a call out to senior managers on Friday night. Dr Higginson said half responded and “all but two of them said that the emergency departments were absolutely full to bursting”.

“Normally just before Christmas, we’d expect a bit of a lull. So I’m afraid things are looking pretty difficult out there for our patients and for our staff,” he added.

The NHS has warned that hospitals are under severe pressure because of winter flu cases and a so-called “quad-demic”, combining respiratory infections with norovirus.

Commenting on the challenges facing the NHS, Dr Higginson said: “We simply don’t have enough beds in our hospitals for patients who are admitted as emergencies.

“We don’t have enough staff for those beds and we don’t have any headroom at all. So if something like flu hits as it has done, it makes a bad situation even worse.”

England ‘about 10,000 beds short’

Dr Higginson added he believes the answer is “strategic solutions and strategic investment”.

He said: “In England alone, we reckon we’re about 10,000 beds short in our hospitals to deal with the predictable, urgent and emergency care… the equivalent of approximately two wards in every hospital.”

Recently the RCEM also attacked the “nonsensical” guidance on how to treat patients in corridors – describing it as “out of touch” and “normalising the dangerous”.

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Dr Higginson said recent pressures mean “we’ve got patients all the way through our corridors because we can’t admit them to hospital when they need to”.

He added: “It may be that their ambulance is outside in car parks because those patients can’t get into our emergency departments.”

And he argued that social care is “in a really difficult place at the moment” – needing investment to prevent older patients from remaining in hospital longer than they need to.

“When they’re ready to leave hospital, they get stuck in hospital, and that contributes to that shortage of beds even more,” he said.

Since its election victory in July, the Labour government has acknowledged the NHS needs investment with the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer saying it is “broken”.

In October, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a £22.6bn increase in day-to-day spending on the NHS in her budget.

Commenting on rising pressures within the NHS, Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “We inherited an NHS that is broken but not beaten, and staff are already working hard to tackle an increase in admissions this winter.”

“For too long, an annual winter crisis has become the norm. We will deliver long-term reforms through our 10-year health plan that will create a health service that will be there for all of us all year round,” he added.