Increase in corridor care ‘haemorrhaging morale’, trust told

Governors at one of the largest trusts in the country have warned that moving patients from beds to chairs to free up space is a risk to staff and public morale.

University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust has been moving patients from beds on wards to trolleys and chairs in corridors for at least the past two months, to make way for patients who need beds after arriving in an ambulance or attending A&E.

However, staff raised concerns during a governors’ meeting last month that it had also begun moving patients from beds in the middle of the night, and in a way that undermined their privacy.

Staff governor Lee Williams said this was “sitting very uneasily with the staff” and “badly affecting morale”.

Mr Williams said: “My big fear is the advances the trust has made in terms of its morale in the clinical areas is going to haemorrhage away.”

He added: “Sometimes the [location] of these temporary escalation spaces is preventing other healthcare professionals providing the care that they would like to in cramped spaces in bays… and relatives are very unhappy with the situation too.”

Another governor, Gerry Moynihan, described the situation as “shocking”. He questioned if patients are being displaced “so that we can have statistics that say we’ve offloaded ambulances quickly”. He said that at Heartlands Hospital, patients were being offloaded “very quickly”.

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Source: HSJ, 14 May 2026

Further reading on the hub:

• How corridor care in the NHS is affecting safety culture
• Corridor care guidance needs to move beyond what “should” happen and grapple honestly with why it isn’t
• Corridor care: are the health and safety risks being addressed?