Although the government has pledged to eliminate it, the Royal Colleges of Nursing and Emergency Medicine say that corridor care is still being mitigated.
Not only is the issue of corridor care not being alleviated, new corridor care guidance published by NHS England has been criticised. The impact is being mitigated rather than eliminated.
“While providing corridor care guidance to NHS leaders and clinicians is important, it equally shows just how far the situation has deteriorated for patients and staff,” said Royal College of Nursing chief nursing officer Lynn Woolsey.
“Nursing staff sounded the alarm 18 months ago on the issue of corridor care, yet it’s deeply distressing and demoralising to see it ultimately accepted as an inevitability into next year and beyond. Patients and nursing staff deserve better.”
It is a problem that Healthcare Today has returned to again and again. In early November, a snapshot survey from the Royal College of Physicians found that nearly three in five doctors reported they had delivered care in a temporary care environment between June and August 2025, including in corridors, gyms, offices, and even cupboards. And of those who reported providing care in a temporary environment over the summer months, 45% said they had done so daily or almost daily.
And later that month, a report from Age UK found that the number of instances of corridor care of 12 hours or more has increased 525-fold since 2015.
A policy failure
“Patients don’t have years to wait; corridor care should’ve already been eradicated, and every day it still exists is a policy failure with devastating human consequences,” said Woolsey.
The Royal College of Nursing is calling for a fully funded plan to eradicate corridor care altogether, which must include investment in hospital beds, nursing staff across acute and community settings, and urgent action to boost social care capacity to speed up patient discharge.
The college’s call was picked by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), which has warned that fractional improvements to some “dismal” A&E performance metrics should not mask the “worryingly high” number of people waiting for over 12 hours on trolleys.
In November, 50,468 people waited 12 hours or more after the decision to admit them to hospital was made. These stays are referred to as trolley waits.
“The number of people waiting for admission on trolleys is worryingly high as winter gets fully underway, with patients being treated in corridors and other inappropriate places. This is both dangerous and undignified,” said RCEM president Ian Higginson.
“We cannot let this situation worsen, especially with the recent rise in flu cases, as we brace ourselves for the pressures and challenges the worst of this cold weather will bring on our nation’s health. But flu is not the cause of these deep-rooted problems – lack of capacity is,” he continued.
Health secretary Wes Streeting has said that he wants to eradicate corridor care by the end of this parliament.
