Emergency ‘corridor care’ is now common in NHS hospitals in England, a senior doctor says

A senior emergency room doctor has said that “almost every hospital is treating patients in corridors and car parks” after a hospital took out advertisements calling for nurses to take on 12-hour “corridor care” shifts.

In response to “very significant pressure” in its emergency department, Whittington Hospital in north London made banking services available to emergency room nurses, stating “corridor care” in the notes.

Ian Higginson, a consultant in emergency medicine and vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, shared a screenshot of the advert on nothing new).”

He also said continued pressure on emergency departments would continue. “Don’t be fooled because the critical incidents are gone, they’re coming back,” he said. “Almost every hospital treats patients in hallways and parking garages.”

MPs wrote to Health Secretary Wes Streeting last week asking for his action plan to help 14 hospitals reporting critical incidents due to “exceptionally high” demand. The Gloucestershire acute trust said on Wednesday it was preparing to cancel operations, urgently discharge 140 patients and limit admissions to cope with “extreme winter pressures”.

Hospitals in Northamptonshire, Cornwall, Liverpool, Hampshire, Birmingham, Plymouth and Wirral have all reported critical incidents. South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust said on Wednesday that emergency department visits in the past week were “consistently among the highest” on record.

This year’s winter crisis also appears to have been caused by flu cases RSV and Covid. Some hospitals have limited visitors, while others are encouraging people to wear surgical masks to limit the spread of viruses.

Whittington Health NHS Trust said it is experiencing “very significant pressure” in its urgent and urgent care services. “Under these circumstances we may need to provide corridor care as an absolute last resort,” a spokesperson said, adding that the trust was employing temporary staff “to ensure care can be delivered to patients as safely and compassionately as possible ”.

Figures from NHS England show that 35.4% of ambulance patients at Whittington Hospital waited more than 30 minutes before being transferred to A&E last week.

The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle, called the care on the ward ‘degrading, dehumanizing and dangerous’ and called on Streeting to force NHS England to publish data on how often patients received such treatment. “Let me be clear: it is not possible to provide truly safe patient care in environments such as hallways and closets,” he said.

“So-called ‘corridor care’ occurs when the emergency department is overcrowded. This crowding leads to longer A&E stays which we know contribute to avoidable deaths, a concept the Prime Minister said should ‘always be horrifying’.”

An NHS England spokesperson said hospitals have been hit by record demand due to flu admissions and thousands of beds being taken up by patients about to be discharged. “The NHS is facing unprecedented demand for services, but we remain clear that caring for patients in temporary spaces is not acceptable and should never be considered standard,” they said.