London, January 8 (RHC)-- Over 300 medical operations per day were canceled due to a critical shortage of beds in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in the UK during the run-up to Christmas.

Surgeons were compelled to postpone planned operations 3,113 times in the first two weeks of December, averaging 311 per working day, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. The figure indicates a rise of nearly 50 percent comparing with the same period two years ago. Another 161 urgent life- or limb-saving operations were also called off in the first half of December, up from 138 last year.

“This is yet another sign that, under (British Prime Minister) David Cameron, the NHS is simply not working,” Britain's Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham said in a statement released on Sunday.

“The chaos in A&E (Accident & Emergency departments) is spreading through the NHS. Hospitals are in danger of becoming overwhelmed as the government takes social care away from older people and makes it harder to see a GP (general practitioner),” Burnham added.

This comes as the number of visits to emergency departments across the UK is rising in recent years. Last year, more than 14.2 million A&E attendances were registered, up 1.4 percent in two years.

The current UK government launched austerity measures when it came to power in 2010 in a bid to tackle the country’s mounting debt and sluggish growth. Since then, over 7,000 NHS clinical staff members, including doctors and nurses, have been made redundant.