Corridor care has become the new normal in England, experts have said, as a national survey found that one in five patients admitted to hospital had to wait in such settings.
The report by the Care Quality Commission also found that nearly 10% of patients waited more than 24 hours to be admitted to hospital and 17.5% waited 12 to 24 hours.More than half of all patients waited more than six hours.
Nearly half waited in a treatment bay, but 18% had to wait in a corridor, 31% in a waiting room and 1%, or 361 patients, said they had to wait in a storage room or cupboard in November last year.
The CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals, Dr Toli Onon, said trolley waits were regrettable and must not become the norm. She said it was great to see improvements since but that reports of lengthy waits and patients whose health had deterioratedwas a real concern.
“Patients should receive safe and effective care in an environment that allows for their privacy and dignity to be protected,” she said. “Corridor care must not become normalised – however, these survey results demonstrate that in some cases the short-term use of temporary escalation spaces to relieve pressure on the ambulance sector is a regrettable reality.”
The CQC’s annual survey of more than 62,000 adults’ experiences of their hospital stays found that more people waiting for planned care reported that their health had worsened while they waited. Forty-three percent said their health had deteriorated while waiting to be admitted, with a 25.5% saying it had got “a bit worse” and 17.7% “much worse”, up from 24% and 17% in 2023 respectively.
Dan Wellings, a senior fellow at The King’s Fund, said: “We must not lose sight of the unacceptable reality that some individuals are still having to wait for care in inappropriate settings, including corridors and even storage cupboards.
“Every patient deserves safe, timely and high-quality treatment. These results make it clear that there is still a long way to go to ensure that standard is met across the board.”
The survey comes as figures released last month found record waits in the summer, with more than 74,000 people waiting over 12 hours in A&E during June and July. More than half a million patients waited over 12 hours in A&E during 2024.
The Health Foundation’s assistant director of policy, Tim Gardner, said: “Resorting to corridor care is not a safe way to run a health service. Long delays in A&E departments put patients at risk of avoidable harm and take a major toll on NHS staff trying to deliver care in impossible situations.”
The general secretary and chief executive professor at the Royal College of Nursing, Nicola Ranger, said: “Behind these figures are thousands of vulnerable people forced to endure intimate examinations in public, placed into areas with little to no appropriate medical equipment. It is undignified, unacceptable and must end.”
The Liberal Democrats’ health and social care spokesperson, Helen Morgan, said: “Corridor care has already become normalised with A&Es in the midst of a permacrisis this summer.
“People are unable to access their GP so are forced to go to hospitals, whilst those in hospitals can’t be discharged as the care capacity doesn’t exist.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “After over a decade of neglect, we are starting to get the NHS back on its feet with much needed reform and £26bn investment.
“We’re working hard to cut waiting lists – with 4.9 million extra appointments already delivered – mend the front door to the NHS to improve GP access, and deliver a seismic shift in care from hospital to community through our 10-year health plan.”
