Trusts told to report harm from ‘unacceptable’ corridor care

NHS England has told trusts to monitor patient harm caused by corridor care this winter – admitting it is happening regularly in some areas despite being “unacceptable”.

NHSE today issued new guidance for the use of “temporary escalation spaces”, including corridors and other “unplanned settings”, even though it says the practice “is not acceptable and should not be considered as standard”.

Last winter trusts were sometimes tacitly encouraged to use corridor space, and to squeeze additional patients onto already-full wards, in order to reduce crowding in emergency departments, and release queuing ambulances — which in turn often leads to very long waits for emergency ambulances.

But in June, a Channel 4 documentary showed scenes of patients being neglected in corridors in the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, bringing a lot of attention to the issue, and NHSE subsequently said corridor care “must not be considered the norm”. The Royal College of Nursing said it should be a “never event”.

Today’s NHSE guidance warns some trusts are using such spaces more regularly than they should be due to “the current healthcare landscape”, and admitted “this use is no longer in extremis”.

The guidance – setting out “principles for providing safe and good quality care” in corridors and other “unplanned” spaces – has been published along with NHSE’s annual letter setting priorities for the coming winter.

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Source: HSJ, 16 September 2024

Related reading on the hub:

• Ending corridor care How and why to call it out
• A silent safety scandal: A nurse’s first-hand account of a corridor nursing shift