A damning nurses’ report has found NHS corridor care is worse than ever with treatment on hospital wards compared to “torture”.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) received testimony from 436 nurses including examples of a patient left in a chair for four days, while another died after choking, undetected in a corridor. It comes as a number of full hospitals in England declare critical incidents without space in emergency departments or beds to admit patients, with one resorting to repurposing a dining room.
The RCN says corridor care has become such a “permanent fixture” in NHS hospitals as nursing staff report treating patients in freezing corridors, dining rooms, staff kitchens, offices and departure lounges.
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Nursing staff have also resorted to holding up white sheets to protect patient dignity when performing intimate procedures, with a corridor in one hospital so tightly packed that an elderly patient was left to eat next to someone vomiting.
RCN General Secretary Professor Nicola Ranger said: “The fact remains that there can be no safe, dignified care delivered in a corridor, store room or dining hall, but that has become the norm.”
A nurse working in the NHS in South West of England, told the RCN: “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 an NHS hospital in the North West of England said: “It breaks my heart being in work and there being a patient, usually elderly, on the corridor and coming back two days later and them still being there.”
A nurse in London said elderly patients regularly spent 24 hours in corridors on trolleys and as a result develop incontinence and pick up respiratory viruses which have led to “extreme critical incidents including death.”
Another nurse in Yorkshire said a terminally ill patient spent a week in a “temporary escalation space”, before being moved into a side room where they died. The nurse said: “I won’t ever forget that.”
A year ago the RCN unveiled its landmark 460-page corridor care report revealing “Third World” scenes in NHS hospitals where care in inappropriate spaces had become normalised all year round. The Mirror attended an RCN media briefing in central London where tearful nurses described being powerless as patients spend hours slowly dying on trolleys in busy corridors and finding a dead patient under a pile of coats.
Today’s report went back to a sample of the 5,000 nurses questioned to see what the situation is like now. They were asked:
A nurse in the South of England reported “having nightmares” after a patient died in a departure lounge which had been turned into a ward. Another nurse working in the South East of England said: “My anxiety is at an all-time high and I will not sleep the day before shift and keep checking online to see the live waiting times to try and prepare myself before I arrive. It’s just awful and there is no end in sight.”
It comes as new YouGov polling shows 36% of Brits who accessed NHS care in the last six months witnessed care being delivered in a corridor or other non-clinical space.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has vowed to eradicate corridor care by the end of this parliament but 69% of respondents said they wanted it done faster than that.
The RCN is calling on the Government to invest in more beds, nurses, community services and social care.
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A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “No one should receive care in a corridor – the situation we inherited is unacceptable and undignified, and we are determined to end it. Staff, including nurses, are under immense pressure, and we recognise the dedication and professionalism of those keeping patients safe and delivering the best care they can.
“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.”
