Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said in a statement the target was internal rather than national and therefore it was "not a priority area".

BBC: Gloucestershire hospitals failing over 'bed-blocking'

By stringing together thousands of these so-called droplets (which measure about 50 microns across) using a custom-built 3D printer, the Oxford team believes it has engineered a "new type of material" that could eventually be used to ferry drugs throughout our internal systems to a specific target site, fill-in for damaged tissues or even mimic neural pathways via specially printed protein pores.

ENGADGET: Oxford University researchers create new 3D printed 'soft material' that could replace human tissue

Prof tenOever hopes this discovery will lead to new antiviral drugs which target the virus's internal clock and that it will provide a new design platform for the flu vaccine.

BBC: Flu virus 'knows when to attack'