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Newly released data reveals that in England last month, close to 3,000 patients daily were treated in hospital corridors or improvised spaces rather than in proper beds within wards. This is the inaugural publication of these figures, shedding light on the significant pressures the NHS is facing to address what government ministers have described as “unsafe” and “unacceptable” conditions. Corridor care is defined as situations where patients spend over 45 minutes receiving treatment in unofficial areas such as corridors, side-rooms, or even car parks, or are left on or near wards without a hospital bed.
In May, on average, 2,241 patients each day experienced care in A&E corridors, while an additional 669 were cared for in similar settings on or close to wards inside hospitals. This represents about 3-4% of all patients arriving at A&E departments daily. Analysis by the NHS highlighted that a relatively small number of trusts are responsible for the majority of these incidents, with 20 trusts accounting for over half of the corridor care cases within A&E and another 20 trusts responsible for more than two-thirds of corridor care occurring elsewhere in hospitals.
The personal experiences of patients and staff provide a stark insight into the reality behind the numbers. Suzanne, whose elderly mother has visited A&E five times this year in the East Midlands, remembers long waits exceeding 24 hours in corridors on each occasion. She described her mother as “one trolley in a sea of trolleys,” reliant on family members to assist with basic needs. Suzanne recalls, “If we hadn’t been, I dread to think what might have happened.” Another patient, Kathy, waited 36 hours alone in a hospital chair earlier this year with a suspected eye infection before discovering her blurred vision was due to a brain tumour, calling the experience “horrendous.”
Nurses working under these conditions have spoken anonymously about the burnout and impossible environments they face. One nurse recounted a shift crowded with patients lining a corridor, where a body was wheeled past en route to the mortuary, and another patient suffered a cardiac arrest in the same area. She said, “Those frail patients watched chest compressions. There’s no dignity in that.” Another described her emergency department as “like a war zone,” sharing the harrowing memory of a patient who died unnoticed in the corridor and began to stiffen before anyone realized. Ministers have promised to eliminate the practice of corridor care by 2029. Health Secretary James Murray declared, “Corridor care is unacceptable, undignified and has no place in our NHS.” He emphasized that publishing the data aims to highlight the worst-affected trusts and ensure they receive necessary support.
The concerns raised extend beyond patients to staff morale. Professor Nicola Ranger, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, labeled the figures “alarming,” highlighting the prevalence of unsafe and undignified care. She added, “Behind these figures aren’t just patients and families suffering, but nursing staff demoralised at being forced to deliver poor care, day in day out.” Similarly, Siva Anandaciva from The King’s Fund described the data as confirming “the scale of something that should never have been normalised in the NHS.” While welcoming the transparency, he cautioned that despite decades of similar data on lengthy waits in NHS services, including A&E, these issues have not diminished
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