RCN Corridor Care Report Shows Healthcare Staff “Beyond Despair”

Patients dying in corridors, lack of equipment and unsafe practices are the findings of a new RCN report documenting the experiences of more than 5,000 NHS nursing staff.

Almost 7 in 10 (66.8%) respondents to an RCN survey said they’re delivering care in over-crowded or unsuitable places – such as corridors, converted cupboards and even car parks – on a daily basis.

Demoralised nursing staff report caring for as many as 40 patients in a single corridor, unable to access oxygen, cardiac monitors, suction and other lifesaving equipment. They report female patients miscarrying in corridors, while others said they cannot provide adequate or timely CPR to patients having heart attacks.

More than 9 in 10 (90.8%) of those surveyed said patient safety is being compromised.

RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger said: “This devastating testimony from frontline nursing staff shows patients are coming to harm every day, forced to endure unsafe treatment in corridors, toilets and even rooms usually reserved for families to visit deceased relatives. Vulnerable people are being stripped of their dignity and nursing staff are being denied access to vital lifesaving equipment. We can now categorically say patients are dying in this situation.”

More than a quarter of nursing staff surveyed said they weren’t told the corridor they were providing care in was classed as a “temporary escalation space”, as described by the NHS in England.

This means risk protocols and additional measures may not be in place to ease pressures and protect patients.

The report follows a letter sent to the Westminster government and NHS England from an RCN-led coalition, calling on officials to publish how many patients are being cared for in corridors and other inappropriate places.

Nicola added: “The revelations from our wards must now become a moment in time. A moment for bold government action on an NHS which has been neglected for so long. Ministers cannot shirk responsibility and need to recognise that recovering patient care will take new investment, including building a strong nursing workforce.”

Assistant Director of Policy, Tim Gardner, said: ‘Today’s report from the Royal College of Nursing brings into sharp focus the harrowing experiences facing some patients and staff in NHS hospitals this winter.

‘Delays in A&E and resorting to corridor care is not a safe way to run a health service, putting patients at risk of avoidable harm and, as these testimonies highlight, taking a major toll on NHS staff.

‘Trolley waits in A&E – one measure of the problems in emergency care – hit record levels in 2024, with over half a million patients waiting over 12 hours for admission to a hospital bed. Such delays were a rarity before the pandemic but are now the worst we have seen since records began in 2011. This is a symptom of an NHS worn down by the pandemic and the decade of underinvestment that preceded it.

‘This report illustrates the scale of the challenge faced by the new government, just in getting the NHS back on its feet and delivering the standards of care people expect, let alone the complexities of longer-term reform. Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes and action is needed right across the health system, including investment in additional capacity in both primary and acute care, new technology and skills to streamline services and boost productivity, as well as long overdue reform and investment in social care.’

Tim Baverstock, Head of Local Systems Influencing, Alzheimer’s Society said; “It has been very difficult to read the harrowing accounts of nurses working on the increasingly demanding front line of NHS ‘corridor care’ reported by the Royal College of Nursing, particularly when patients with dementia have been distressed or unable to receive appropriate care. We hear many similar traumatic stories from family members who contact the Alzheimer’s Society support line.”

“It is vital that we prioritise interventions like early diagnosis and effective treatment, alongside adequate dementia training for the social care workforce, to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions for people living with dementia and relieve the pressure on overcrowded hospitals while protecting patient safety and dignity. These interventions must be considered as key elements of the government’s 10-year Health Plan consultation process. Dementia, and the impact on the NHS workforce, is a whole-system challenge and must be prioritised with the utmost haste.”

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK said: “Nye Bevan must be turning in his grave: the apparent normalisation of ‘corridor care’ is an affront in a civilised society and for the sake of the public and staff alike must cease. We know that older people are especially likely to be on trollies for long periods and this is no place for them to spend what for some will be their last hours and minutes. We urgently need to see a plan from the Government & the NHS to phase out this shameful practice as swiftly as possible, and if the Treasury needs to come up with some extra funding to enable this to happen it should.

“It’s hard to think of a more certain way of both undermining public trust in the NHS and the retention of skilled nurses than tolerating very sick older people being ‘stacked up’ in passages, as if they were lorries on a motorway.”