Increase in ‘corridor care’ in hospitals is a national emergency, the union warns

Overcrowding is forcing hospitals to treat so many patients in corridors and storage areas that it is a “national emergency”, according to the British nurses’ union.

The growing and widespread practice is putting patients’ safety at risk by leaving them without oxygen or easily attracting the attention of staff, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has warned.

“Corridor care” also deprives patients of their dignity because they have to undergo intimate examinations in full view of others and do not have easy access to a toilet, it added.

Hospitals are expanding to such an extent that some patients have died while being cared for in what the RCN said were “inappropriate areas”, which could include car parks and fracture rooms.

The RCN called on the NHS to recognize the serious risk that ‘corridor care’ poses to patients, by recording every time it happened and classifying it as ‘never’. The latter would put it on a par with incidents such as surgeons operating on the wrong part of someone’s body.

A new RCN report, based on a survey of 11,000 nurses in the UK, provides evidence of the impact on patients and staff of the care provided in such settings. A nurse said, “You wouldn’t treat a dog like this.”

Nurses described patients being told they had cancer while in public areas, and someone with dementia being left in a hallway for hours without oxygen.

Prof. Nicola Ranger, acting general secretary and CEO of the RCN, will say in her keynote address at the start of the union’s annual conference: “Our once world-leading services treat patients in car parks and shop cupboards. The elderly languish on chairs for hours and patients die in the corridors.

“The horror of this situation cannot be underestimated. It is a national patient safety emergency.

“Care provided for an emergency exit is not care. Signing a do-not-resuscitate order in a hallway is not a problem. Receiving a cancer diagnosis in a public place is not a concern. It’s a nightmare for everyone involved.”

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which represents A&E doctors, said patients kept in non-clinical areas of hospitals were “disgraceful, dehumanizing and dangerous”.

Its chairman, Dr Adrian Boyle, said: “As shocking as the RCN’s findings are, treating patients in corridors, cupboards and car parks is the everyday reality our members and their colleagues face every time they go to their go to work.

“This shameful situation is one of the most visible indicators of a system that is under great strain and not functioning as it should be.”

He urged whoever formed the government after the July 4 general election to increase the number of permanently staffed beds in hospitals and finally implement a long-awaited “significant and substantial reform” of social care to reduce the number of people need for hospital care.

Matthew Stewart, a staff nurse in critical care and an RCN representative, said nurses across the UK had noticed a sharp increase in ‘corridor care’ in recent years.

“We probably would have had the occasional patient in the hallway before the pandemic, but that was based on when we were cleaning their bed area or something like that. It was a very short period of time and in a very rare situation that would happen.”

He said nurses were unable to properly care for patients stuck in hallways, supply closets or waiting rooms because those places lacked equipment.

“In a typical bed space you obviously have oxygen, suction, monitoring or monitoring on machines that you can grab quite quickly. And you have things like IV stands so you can administer your medications. Hallways or pantries just don’t have the equipment we should have.”

“Corridor care” appears to have grown as more hospitals in England have adopted a “continuous flow model”, where ambulance crews leave patients in A&E rather than in their vehicles so they can get back on the road more quickly to answer more 999 calls to answer.

In a blog post in February for the Health Foundationwarned Heather Wilson, a nurse in an A&E department in central London and also a policy officer at the think tank: “The increasing frequency of care in the ward is alarming… (and) risks normalizing substandard care… Patients can feel invisible out of sight of staff.”

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “NHS nurses are sounding the alarm about the dire state of the NHS after fourteen years of Conservative neglect. Patients and staff alike can see that the NHS is broken.”

NHS England said it was trying to ease the intense pressure on hospitals by creating more GP appointments; increasing the number of “virtual wards”, where patients are cared for at home; providing extra beds and discharging patients in a timely manner.

A spokesperson said: “The NHS is facing significant demand for services and the quality of care remains a priority. One of the key ambitions of our emergency and urgent care recovery plan is to improve the flow of patients in and out of hospitals.

“The NHS has delivered an additional 5,000 core beds this winter, as well as measures to help patients avoid emergency department admission. Tools such as our industry-leading virtual ward program and discharge lounges all help improve patient care.”