Patients are being left without access to oxygen, enduring intimate examinations, and even dying in hospital corridors, it is revealed today, as the nursing union declares a “national emergency” over care delivered in inappropriate crowded areas.
At the start of the Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) annual conference, Acting General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger will use her keynote speech to declare a national emergency as it releases a new report on the topic of clinical care in inappropriate areas.
The nursing union is asking for mandatory national reporting of patients cared for in corridors to reveal the extent of hospital overcrowding as part of a plan to eradicate the practice.
Patients are regularly treated on chairs in corridors for extended periods of time, sometimes days. The College says that these must now be determined as ‘Never Events’ in NHS services in the same way as having the wrong limb operated on or a foreign object left inside a patient's body.
Health and care service regulators should also include corridor care in inspection regimes.
A new survey of almost 11,000 frontline nursing staff across the UK shows how widespread the practice has become. When asked about their most recent shift, more than one in three (37%) nursing staff working in typical hospital settings report delivering care in an inappropriate area, such as a corridor.
Of those being forced to deliver care in inappropriate settings, over half (53%) say it left them without access to life-saving equipment including oxygen and suction. Almost seven in ten (67%) said the care they delivered in public compromised patient privacy and dignity.
To the more than 3,000 nursing staff gathered in Newport, Wales, Professor Ranger will say:
“This is a tragedy for our profession. Our once world-leading services are treating patients in car parks and store cupboards. The elderly are languishing on chairs for hours on end and patients are dying in corridors. The horror of this situation cannot be understated. It is a national emergency for patient safety and today we are raising the alarm.”
Ranger will say:
“This is about honesty and accountability. Care being delivered in front of a fire exit isn’t care. Signing do not resuscitate orders in a corridor isn’t care. Receiving a cancer diagnosis in a public area isn’t care. It’s a nightmare for all involved. We need to call it out as nursing staff, and health leaders and ministers need to take responsibility.”
One nurse, working in a hospital in England, said: “Patients are soiled for long periods of time because there is nowhere to change them. I've witnessed DNACPR (do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation) decisions being signed in the corridor. I've had to move a deceased patient into a corridor in order to generate resus (resuscitation) capacity before. It’s horrific.”
The findings and testimonies are published in a new report ‘Corridor Care: unsafe, undignified, unacceptable’, alongside the College’s general election manifesto. Both call for corridor care to be eradicated from health and care settings.
Thousands of nursing staff report how corridor care has become the norm in almost every corner of a typical hospital setting. Heavy patient flow and lack of capacity sees nursing staff left with no space to place patients. What would have been an emergency measure is now routine.
Ranger will say:
“Treating patients in corridors used to be an exceptional circumstance. Now it is a regular occurrence and a symptom of a system in crisis. We are right to be angry that this once abnormal practice has become normalised.”
Staff describe patients receiving cancer diagnoses and intimate exams in public areas. One nurse said: “You wouldn't treat a dog this way.” Another nurse was instructed to “let a patient wander” as there was not enough room on the ward.
Another nurse recounted a patient with dementia being in a corridor for hours without oxygen. They said: “When I arrived, she was in a wheelchair on a corridor with her daughter. She was extremely agitated, crying and confused. This care environment for any patient, never mind with dementia, was completely inappropriate.”
The new report says corridor care is ‘a symptom of a system in crisis’, with patient demand in all settings, from primary to community and social care, outstripping workforce supply. The result is patients left unable to access care near their homes and instead being forced to turn to hospitals.
Poor population health and a lack of investment in prevention is exacerbating the problem, the report says.
The College says governments have to take a whole system approach, ensuring investment in health care services is at least reciprocated in others including primary, community and social care.
Ranger will also say:
“Patients shouldn’t have to end up at the doors of our emergency departments because they can’t get a GP appointment, a visit from a district nurse or a social care package. But that is the reality. Corridor care is a scourge in our hospitals, but we know the solution is to invest in our entire health and care system - and its nursing workforce.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
The full report ‘Corridor Care: unsafe, undignified, unacceptable’ can be found here.
Methodology - In our recent safe staffing survey (March 2024), we invited nursing and midwifery staff across the UK to share their experiences of their most recent shift/day at work. Around 11,000 respondents provided valuable insight into the realities of staffing levels, and the impact on nursing/midwifery staff and the patients they are caring for.
In response to the statement ‘clinical care took place in an inappropriate environment e.g. an additional bed in a bay, waiting room, a corridor or a location not designed for patients’, 37% of respondents across the UK selected ‘agree’. We excluded responses from settings where corridor care does not occur (such as call centres and education settings).
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is the voice of nursing across the UK and is the largest professional union of nursing staff in the world. The RCN promotes the interests of nurses and patients on a wide range of issues and helps shape healthcare policy by working closely with the UK Government and other national and international institutions, trade unions, professional bodies and voluntary organisations.
For more information, contact the RCN press office at 020 7647 3633 or email mediateamhq@rcn.org.uk
