Nurses have compared corridor care in the NHS this winter to "a type of torture" that sees patients forced to endure undignified conditions. Damning accounts shared with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) included a description of one patient left in a chair for four days and another who died after choking in a corridor. Responses from 436 staff this month showed poor care in inappropriate spaces remains widespread.

A nurse working in the NHS in south-west England said: "I imagine patients feel deeply embarrassed, objectified, judged, uncared for, feel a burden on a broken system, wishing they had never bothered to come in and would rather have taken the risk of dying at home than go through the torture. Because that's what we subject them to, a type of torture."

Another nurse in the South said: "We would not treat animals like this in a veterinary practice, so why in a hospital?"

Nursing staff told the RCN they treat patients in freezing corridors, dining rooms, staff kitchens, offices, seminar rooms, family rooms, deceased viewing rooms and discharge lounges.

One working in the South of England described suffering from nightmares after a patient died in a lounge which had been turned into a ward.

Another nurse in London said elderly patients regularly spent 24 hours on trolleys in corridors and as a result develop incontinence and pick up respiratory viruses which have led to "extreme critical incidents including death".

The updated report comes one year after the RCN published a groundbreaking dossier of evidence about the frontline of the UK's corridor care crisis.

RCN general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger said the findings revealed "once again the devastating human consequences of corridor care, with patients forced to endure conditions which have no place in our NHS".

She added: "The fact remains that there can be no safe, dignified care delivered in a corridor, store room or dining room, but that has become the norm.

"The tragedy is that every day, people are coming to harm just when they need excellent care the most. That is heartbreaking and deeply troubling."

Urging the Government to invest in more beds, nurses, community services and social care, Prof Ranger added: "Nursing staff declared a national emergency on the issue of corridor care over 18 months ago, but far from being eradicated as a practice it's become a permanent fixture, spreading throughout hospitals and beyond emergency departments.

"It's taking a terrible toll on staff, but ministers mustn't allow them to lose hope."

It comes as new YouGov polling shows almost one in five (18%) UK adults have witnessed care being delivered in a corridor or other non-clinical spaces in the last six months.

Nine in ten (88%) of respondents said tackling unsafe care was an "urgent priority".

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "No one should receive care in a corridor - the situation we inherited is unacceptable and undignified, and we are determined to end it.

"We have taken immediate steps to address these issues including investing £450 million to expand urgent and emergency care services, expanding vaccination programmes, preparing for winter earlier than ever before, building 40 new same day emergency care centres and 15 mental health crisis centres.

"At the same time, NHS England is working closely with trusts to reduce variation, tackle inconsistencies, improve data collection and reduce discharge delays, alongside social care colleagues."