The Tory minister said the situation was avoidable and patients should not be forced to wait on trolleys.
Mr O'Brien was responding after the M.E.N revealed hospitals across Greater Manchester were at breaking point.
We reported how the MRI was on red status - the highest crisis state - with some patients waiting on trolleys, others spending the night in chairs and ambulances being diverted to other units.
Mr O'Brien, MP for Eddisbury and whose wife is a nurse, said: "If Labour health ministers were not so obsessed with top-down targets we would not have arrived at this situation. People will understandably be worried that if we have a long winter the situation could get worse."
A Department of Health spokesman accepted bed numbers are decreasing, but said: "Advances in medical technology and shorter stays for routine operations mean less beds are needed. But where the NHS needs more beds, there are more beds: the number of day-only beds has increased by 45 per cent since 1997, and we now have 46 per cent more critical beds and a hundred per cent more immediate care beds than we had in 2000."
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "If there is such a high occupancy of beds - in some cases up to 98 percent when the recommended level is 85 percent - hospitals are breaching the guidelines and there is also a link with the MRSA super bug.
"We have seen a dramatic increase in A&E admissions because there is no out of hours care from GPs. People with chronic conditions have been occupying vital beds when they could be treated at home."
The Health Secretary Alan Johnson has announced plans to improve access to GP services.
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Were not more patients waiting on trolleys when the conservatives were in Power??
They seem to have a short memory.
come-on-city: you got the figures on that?
And things can only get worse. No matter what is done now with the influx of asylum seekers and immigrants who have landed here with TB, HIV etc and with conditions that will worsen over time imagine what a drain that is going to be on the NHS - no dont imagine do something about it we are an island that is slowly sinking into the abyss.
As I say the past government website is not allowing me to cut and paste.
But here is article that shows beds crisis under Tories was just as bad as now.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/251375.stm
There used to be a winter beds crisis under the Tories in 1990s. For the last seven years there have been no such headlines.
Why not?
The NHS is better funded and moving forward with waiting lists slashed rather than growing, more nurses and doctors. Lots more needs to be done but hypocritical comments by the Shadow Health Minister, merely show his cheap political motives rather than constructively looking forward for the UK's jewel.
My dad got stuck on a trolley in 1995 under John Major's pathetic apology for a government and he died on it.
born & bred: with the amount of money we've put in to the NHS, I should hope it has improved. However, it hasn't improved in pro to the increased funding. As far as waiting lists, the figures are massaged and manipulated. My advice to anyone - go private, jump the queue. It's just one of the benefits of a mixed economy.
In response to The Bobelesque, In The Rye, a close relative has had four operations this year on the NHS, no waiting and the care and service was brilliant.
Stuff your mixed economy! The waiting lists have come down dramatically and NHS is rapidly improving. It is our jewel in the crown!