NHS corridor care is ‘torture’ leading to patient deaths and staff nightmares

Key Highlights

• However, NHS staff groups are sceptical that he can fulfil that promise, given that many hospitals are overloaded so often, and not just during the winter. The RCN’s dossier is based on testimony from 436 nurses around the UK between 2 and 9 January.
• One, in the south of England, was “having nightmares” after a patient died in a departure lounge that had been turned into a makeshift ward. Another, in Yorkshire, relayed how a terminally ill patient had spent a week in an overflow area before being moved to a side room, where they died.
• “I won’t ever forget that,” the nurse said.
• A third, in the north-west of England, said it had become “routine” for 26 patients to be stuck in a corridor awaiting a bed, even though their hospital said no more than six should be left there. Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN’s general secretary, said: “This testimony from nursing staff reveals once again the devastating human consequences of corridor care, with patients forced to endure conditions which have no place in our NHS.”Nurses’ experience “shows the unacceptable practice of corridor care is spreading beyond emergency departments, including acute assessment units, respiratory wards and elderly care wards”, she added.
• In June 2024, the union declared corridor care a “national emergency”. The NHS’s safety watchdog in England warned last week that “temporary care environments” in hospitals posed serious risks to patients, including infection, lack of call bells and problems monitoring them.