Hospital patients are dying unnoticed in corridors, an NHS report has found

Patients are dying in hospital corridors and remain undiscovered for hours, while others suffering heart attacks are unable to receive resuscitation due to overcrowding in corridors, a bombshell report into the state of the NHS has revealed.

So many patients are being cared for in hospital corridors in Britain that in some cases pregnant women are having miscarriages outside wards, while other patients are unable to call for help because they have no bell and are subjected to “animal conditions”. said the Royal College of Nursing.

The RCN warned that patients were “routinely injured” and in some cases dying because vital equipment was unavailable and staff were too busy to give everyone adequate care.

Dr. Adrian Boyle, the leader of Britain’s A&E doctors, said the nurses’ testimony on which the report was based was so appalling that it must be “a turning point, a line in the sand” and prompt the government to step up its efforts double. get the NHS working properly again.

Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “I am shocked, appalled and so saddened that this is the level of care we as doctors are forced to provide to our patients – people who turn to the NHS and its staff when they are most vulnerable and in need.”

The RCN’s 460-page report, based on ‘harrowing’ accounts from 5,400 British nurses about their experiences of working in hospitals, sets out how:

  • One nurse had seen “cardiac arrests in the hallway with no crash bell, crash cart, oxygen, defibrillator… while straddling a patient doing CPR while everyone watched.”

  • Patients receive medications, intravenous infusions and, in one case, a blood transfusion in hallways that are cold, noisy and too cramped for loved ones to be present.

The report came as Wes Streeting, the health and social care secretary, was forced to defend the government’s record on the NHS in an urgent debate in the House of Commons over the intense pressure this winter which has seen that many hospitals have been overwhelmed in recent weeks.

Streeting responded to Conservative attacks by telling MPs that ward care “was normalized in NHS hospitals under the previous government. It is unsafe, undignified, a cruel consequence of fourteen years of failure in the NHS and I am determined to consign it to the history books.”

But, he added, while ending hospital care was the government’s ambition, “I cannot and will not promise that no more patients will be treated on the corridors next year. It will take time to undo the damage done to our NHS.”

He promised last week to publish a plan to “soon” improve NHS emergency care, which also includes GP and ambulance services and the 111 telephone advice service.

Whittington Hospital in North London has advertised for nurses to specifically provide ‘corridor care’. Photo: Yui Mok/PA

Patients can be stuck in a chair or trolley in a corridor – sometimes for days – after staff decide they need to be admitted, but while they wait for a bed. Because they are not in the emergency room, they can be “forgotten” and miss out on care, nurses say. It can become difficult to take them to the toilet.

A nurse in south-east England told how “a patient died in the corridor but was not discovered for hours”.

So many patients are being treated in hallways that some hospitals are now recruiting nurses specifically to work in those locations. For example, Whittington Hospital in north London last week advertised for nurses to provide “corridor care” or act as a “corridor RN (registered nurse),” the Sunday Times reported.

The report comes as the NHS struggles with one of the worst winter crises in its history. In recent weeks, around 20 hospital trusts in England have been declared a ‘critical incident’ – an acknowledgment that they cannot cope with the demand for care and need help. Many have become so overcrowded that they have told people visiting emergency rooms not to bring a loved one with them.

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This winter, the NHS in England was hit by record numbers of ambulance transfer delays outside A&E of at least an hour, as well as unprecedented numbers of patients in ambulances being diverted to other nearby hospitals because the intended hospital could not transport them.

The Queen’s hospital in Romford, Essex – which treats Streeting’s constituents – has become so overwhelmed that it has had to spend £100,000 a month hiring 19 extra nurses to care for what has become 50 patients in recent weeks who need some treatment. moment stuck in corridors, the Health Service Journal announced this week.

The emergency department was built to accommodate 325 patients daily, but sometimes that number more than doubles. Hospital bosses say the emergency department is “not fit for purpose” and they need £35 million to expand it. They recently put up posters advising people frustrated by the situation to lobby local MPs about the money.

Queen’s hospital in Romford, Essex, has had up to 50 patients in its corridors at any one time in recent weeks. Photo: Hannah McKay/Reuters

NHS workers have described the conditions of recent weeks – with flu being the most damaging of a ‘quad-demic’ of respiratory viruses that have overwhelmed hospitals – as the worst they have faced in their careers.

“Some emergency department staff say their working days feel like the days we had during the height of the pandemic,” Prof Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said last week.

Prof. Nicola Ranger, general secretary and chief executive of RCN, said: “Patients are harmed every day. We can now say categorically that patients die in this situation.”

Some nurses stop working in emergency departments, or even altogether, because of the emotional toll of working in such conditions, the RCN has found.

One nurse said, “(I) ultimately left the unit due to overwhelming anxiety and fear that patients would die because they were physically unable to care for them safely.”

Patients can become so frustrated when stuck in a hallway that they decide to leave the emergency room. One nurse described how some patients “refuse treatment and discharge themselves against advice due to the situation, putting them at risk of significant side effects”.

Duncan Barton, England’s chief nursing officer, said: “Increasing demand has resulted in extreme pressure on services, especially in recent months and in one of the toughest winters the NHS has experienced.

“The impact this has on the experiences of patients and staff, as highlighted in the RCN report, should never be regarded as the standard to which the NHS strives.”

Join Wes Streeting in conversation with Pippa Crerar to discuss England’s health and social care system and how Labor plans to change it. On Tuesday, March 25, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:15 PM (GMT). Book tickets here or at Guardianlive.com

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