Healthcare bodies renew pressure on ministers for investment in staffing and bed capacity as nearly 3,000 patients a day receive corridor care

The government is still not acting fast enough to end corridor care, healthcare bodies have warned.

Nearly 3,000 patients a day had to be treated in hospital corridors or make-shift areas in England last month, new data shows. It is the first time such figures have been released after sustained pressure from campaign groups and bodies representing NHS staff.

In March, NHS England formally defined the blight on emergency departments and committed to publishing data on the issue by May.

Corridor care is defined as when patients spend more than 45 minutes being treated in inappropriate settings, either in A&E or on a ward. Although corridors are the most typical example, patients have reported being seen in car parks and side rooms.

“Treating patients in corridors isn’t just inappropriate, it’s undignified and often unsafe,” said BMA consultants committee emergency medicine lead Den Langhor.

Following the startling data, renewed pressure has been placed on the government to act more quickly to address what Ian Higginson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, described as a “national scandal”.

He warned that corridor care is a symptom of overcrowding and said the measures “we know will curb corridor care” are still not being implemented, such as increasing hospital bed availability and introducing weekend and evening working for other departments.

Nicola Ranger, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said the new data is a damning indictment of how far care standards have fallen.

The RCN is calling for renewed investment in beds across the NHS and the nursing workforce, as well as “long-overdue” action to increase capacity in community and social care so patients can be seen closer to home.  Often, patients take up valuable beds if there is nowhere for them to be discharged into the community.

Totally unacceptable

Agreeing corridor care is “totally unacceptable”, Francesca Swords, national media director for the NHS, said the organisation has a seven-point plan to end it and is offering targeted support for the most troubled trusts.

On average, in May, there were 2,241 patients a day who experienced corridor care in A&E, while another 669 experienced it elsewhere in hospital.

The NHS found that 20 trusts accounted for more than half of the cases of corridor care in emergency departments, while 20 also accounted for more than two-thirds of cases in other areas.

Meanwhile, waiting lists for NHS treatment have increased. While there has been year-on-year improvement, in April the number of people waiting to begin treatment grew to 7.2 million, compared to 7.1 million the previous month.

The Royal College of Surgeons says this shows how fragile progress can be, and urged ministers to expand surgical capacity so patients can be operated on without delay.

The NHS met its interim target of 65% of patients starting treatment within 18 weeks by March this year, but the college warned it might not meet its overall aim of 92% by March 2029 without further investment in more beds and staff, as well as modernising hospital infrastructure.

Frank Smith, vice president of the college, said there are limits to what can be achieved without the facilities needed to treat more patients.

“Our message to the new secretary of state is clear,” he said, “if the government wants waiting lists to fall faster, reform must be matched with investment.”