NHS England reports nearly 3,000 patients daily in corridors

Official data published on Thursday reveals that nearly 3,000 patients per day were treated or waited in hospital corridors or other clinically unsuitable spaces across England last month. The figures, released for the first time by NHS England, quantify a practice known as "corridor care," which occurs when patients are not in a clinically appropriate and safe setting.

The statistics for May show an average of 2,241 instances daily of patients receiving corridor care for more than 45 minutes within accident and emergency departments. A further 699 instances per day occurred inside hospital wards, where patients were treated on a ward but not in a designated bed space. The data is based on a snapshot taken at 8 a.m. each morning.

Health leaders responded with alarm to the scale of the problem. Chris McCann, Acting Chief Executive at Healthwatch England, called the figure of nearly 3,000 people a day a shocking reflection of current pressures on the NHS. Siva Anandaciva of the King's Fund stated the figures confirm the scale of something that should never have been normalized, noting that pressure across the whole health and care system is spilling into A&E. He said the sheer...