33 trusts promised funding for urgent care units

The government has revealed the locations of 40 new and expanded urgent care centres and same-day emergency care units.

The programme, backed by £215.5m, includes 10 new urgent treatment centres, four expanded UTCs, five new same-day emergency care services and 21 expanded SDECs. They are across 33 hospital trusts.

A government announcement said the facilities would tackle corridor care by “reducing waiting times and improving patient flow through hospitals” – but the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has disputed this claim.

While many of the hospitals set to host the new UTCs and SDECs are above the national average for 12-hour waits in A&E, others appear to have less of a problem with long A&E waits. This measure is a close barometer of corridor care.

“Expert teams” from NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time programme are also being sent to the hospitals with the highest levels of corridor care to provide “bespoke clinical support to leadership staff”, the government has said.

RCEM president Ian Higginson welcomed the government’s commitment to eradicate corridor care, but said urgent treatment centres “are not the answer to reducing corridor care and will not make a dent in the number of people who are enduring long waits on trolleys in inappropriate places such as corridors”.

“These services focus on the least unwell patients, and it’s the most unwell or those with mental health problems who are filling our corridors,” he added.

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Source: HSJ, 11 April 2026