Emergency departments across the UK are “in big trouble” owing to the way corridor care has been “normalised”, a leading medic has warned.
Dr Ian Higginson, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said there should be “howls of outrage” over deaths linked to long emergency department waits, with just a few hospitals around the UK managing to avoid caring for patients on trolleys in corridors.
Patients are now “not surprised” when they are cared for in a corridor because the problem is so widespread – yet doctors “can’t deliver care” this way, Higginson told PA Media.
Earlier this year, the RCEM released estimates that suggested there were more than 16,600 deaths of patients linked to very long waits in A&E for a hospital bed last year – the equivalent of about 320 deaths a week.
“If we had 16,000 patients a year dying in bus crashes or in aircraft crashes or anywhere else there would be such howls of outrage something would be done about it. And yet, we can’t understand why those awful statistics don’t provoke really determined action at the highest level across governments,” said Higginson.
Separate analysis, released earlier this month, found that almost one in five patients treated in UK emergency departments in March were being cared for in “escalation areas”, meaning any area not routinely used for care, such as corridors. Higginson suspected that the figures could be worse now, reflecting a wider NHS trend towards deterioration.
Earlier in December, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, pledged to end corridor care in hospitals in England by the next general election, “if not sooner”.
Higginson said that efforts to resolve the crisis in hospitals around the UK were focused on “bits that they think are quick and easy and cheap”, for example, persuading people not to go to hospital and seek alternatives instead.
With political will, he believed the problem was “fixable” – and that doing so would be vital to improve working conditions for staff who are “run ragged, exhausted and suffering from a mixture of either burnout, moral injury or exhaustion [and] PTSD”.
“The solutions are to make hospitals more efficient; to provide more staff to beds in hospitals and to improve community-based and social care so that patients can leave hospital where they need to,” he said.
Official NHS figures show the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments from a decision to admit to actually being admitted in England was 50,648 in November.
An NHS England spokesperson said: “It is totally unacceptable that patients are waiting over 12 hours to be admitted to a hospital bed, and in some cases, this wait is occurring in corridors.
“The NHS is working hard to free up beds by ensuring patients are discharged as soon as they are medically fit to leave hospital or cared for closer to home by improved access to appropriate services in the community.
“This winter, specialist NHS productivity and regional experts are working closely with hospitals to drive down incidences of corridor care, and ensuring patients receive the quality of care they deserve.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “No one should receive care in a corridor – the situation we inherited is unacceptable and undignified, and we are determined to end it.
“Although things are tough right now and the road ahead is long, our investment and modernisation are making a difference and the NHS is showing signs of recovery.
“Compared with last year, more patients are being seen within four hours of arriving at A&E, and ambulance response times are 10 minutes faster for conditions such as stroke or chest pain.”
