Top A&E doctors criticise ‘dangerous’ suggestion that corridor care can be delivered safely

Top emergency doctors have criticised a new guide on how to treat patients in corridors, warning it is “normalising the dangerous”.

New guidance produced by NHS England in September on how to provide “safe and good quality care” in “temporary” spaces.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has denounced the guide as “nonsensical” and “out of touch”, saying that it is “not possible to provide safe and good quality care” in corridors and cupboards in a new position statement.

While acknowledging that corridor care is “not acceptable”, the guidance says hospitals are having to use temporary spaces more regularly - and use is no longer “in extremis”. It advises staff on how they can deliver the “safest, most effective and highest quality care possible” in such circumstances.

The RCEM’s new statement on the guidance said: “Advice from arm’s length bodies that appear out of touch with what is happening in our departments was always going to be poorly received.”

Using corridors will result in long emergency department waits which are “associated with measurable harm to patients”, it said.

Use of corridors will lead to long waits in emergency departments which is “associated with measurable harm to patients”, it added.

Patient dignity and privacy is “not maintained” when they are cared for in corridors, with sleep “difficult, if not impossible” and unfeasible circumstances for maintaining patient confidentiality.

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Source: The Independent, 16 December 2024

Related reading on the hub:

• A nurse's response to the NHSE guidance on their principles for providing safe and good quality care in temporary escalation spaces
• A silent safety scandal: A nurse’s first-hand account of a corridor nursing shift