Every day in Scotland patients are being cared for in corridors and other inappropriate settings and left without access to essential equipment and facilities, we can reveal today (Monday 3 June) in a new report from the Royal College of Nursing.
Treatment like this in inappropriate settings can last for extended periods, sometimes even days. We are calling for such care now to 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.
We are also 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.
The new report is based on responses to a UK-wide survey of frontline nursing staff, including over 1,400 in Scotland. It shows the extent to which corridor care has become normalised. When asked about their most recent shift, more than one in three (38%) of you working in typical hospital settings report delivering care in an inappropriate setting, such as a corridor.
Of those being forced to deliver care in inappropriate settings, over half of you (58%) say it left you without access to life-saving equipment including oxygen and suction. Seven in ten (71%) said the care they delivered in public compromised patient privacy and dignity.
The situation is so grave that NHS boards and Scottish government ministers should be forced to disclose the number of instances of care delivered in inappropriate settings, including corridors.
One respondent working in Scotland said:
“Patients are sent who are acutely unwell, stressed or agitated or delirious with some requiring enhanced observations. They are routinely placed in the middle of our Nightingale wards and we are expected to manage them with no appropriate equipment or any means to provide safe or dignified care.”
Another said:
“A patient was vomiting half a metre from the next patient in a five-bedded bay. I pulled a plastic screen in front of her as I couldn't pull the curtain around them due to the position of the bed to fit three beds along one wall. All of our ward's four bays (and treatment room) have had extra beds for four years now. I've never worked a shift as an RN or student nurse without them, despite told frequently they are being ‘closed’ only to reopen half a shift later.”
The findings and testimonies are published in ‘Corridor Care: unsafe, undignified, unacceptable’, alongside the College’s UK general election manifesto. Both call for corridor care to be eradicated from health and care settings.
You report how corridor care has become the norm in almost every corner of a typical hospital setting. Heavy patient flow and lack of capacity results in no space to place patients, you told us. What would have been an emergency measure is now routine.
Colin Poolman, RCN Scotland Executive Director, said:
“It’s entirely unacceptable for patients that their care is being compromised by it so often taking place in an inappropriate setting. And it’s entirely unacceptable for nursing staff that their clinical skills and commitment to providing safe and effective care is being undermined by a situation that, worryingly, is becoming normalised.”
“The Scottish government and NHS boards need to eradicate this problem by tackling the nursing workforce crisis in hospital, community and social care services, understanding the ‘true’ demand on our services and get bed numbers and services right, and work out how to unlock additional clinical spaces including by dealing with maintenance backlogs.”
At the start of RCN Congress in Newport today (3 June), Professor Nicola Ranger will say ‘the horror of this situation cannot be understated’ and declare a UK ‘national emergency for patient safety’ to over 3,000 RCN members.
Professor 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.”
