Top A&E doctor accuses NHS leaders of normalising treatment in corridors
The UK’s most senior A&E doctor has accused NHS leaders of normalising corridor care with major plans for winter this year, The Independent can reveal.
Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, has warned NHS guidance published this week also blasted national leaders’ guidance, warning that it will be “insufficient” to tackle “dangerous” 12-hour waits in A&E.
NHS England has published guidance for hospitals on how to manage patients in corridors, where previously it would advise corridor care is not acceptable.
Dr Boyle said: “In its guidance for providing ‘safe’ corridor care, NHS England has said the practice ‘is not acceptable and should not be considered as standard’, however anyone working in an Emergency Department across the country knows that it very much is the standard, and not just in winter.
“Publishing this document is an explicit acknowledgement, and a normalisation, of an unacceptable situation.”
Source: The Independent, 21 September 2024
Read a nurse's response to the NHS guidance in a blog shared on the hub: