Dead patients are lying undiscovered for hours in A&E because NHS staff are too overstretched to notice, a harrowing report reveals today.
A severe shortage of beds means the sick are also being left in ‘animal-like’ conditions in hospital car parks, cupboards and toilets.
Pregnant women are suffering miscarriages in corridors and the elderly are languishing unaided in soiled bedding, it adds.
The Royal College of Nursing today lays bare the tragic collapse of the NHS in a 460-page dossier, titled ‘On the frontline of the UK’s corridor care crisis’.
It features the testimonies of more than 5,000 nurses, who expose how patients are being cruelly ‘stripped of their dignity’ and routinely suffering avoidable deaths.
They say it has become ‘normalised’ for patients to be left for days at a time in chairs or trolleys in ‘inappropriate settings’, rather than on a ward.
Demoralised nurses report caring for as many as 40 patients in a single corridor – some blocking fire exits or parked next to vending machines.
There, they have no access to a call bell, oxygen or lifesaving equipment and are often out of sight of the nursing station. Some are forced to go to the toilet in view of other patients, while others have no privacy as they discuss deeply personal medical issues or are told they are going to die.
A severe shortage of beds means the sick are also being left in ‘animal-like’ conditions in hospital car parks, cupboards and toilets. Pictured: File photo
Health Secretary Wes Streeting yesterday told MPs that corridor care was ‘undignified’ but warned that patients were still likely to be treated there next winter
Tamara Davis was just 31 when she died after being ‘abandoned’ in a corridor with 19 other patients
Health Secretary Wes Streeting yesterday told MPs that corridor care was ‘undignified’ but warned that patients were still likely to be treated there next winter.
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN chief executive, described the report as ‘harrowing’, adding staff were leaving because they ‘cannot do it any more’.
She said: ‘This devastating testimony from frontline nursing staff shows patients are coming to harm every day, forced to endure unsafe treatment in corridors, toilets, and even rooms usually reserved for families to visit deceased relatives.
‘Vulnerable people are being stripped of their dignity and nursing staff are being denied access to vital lifesaving equipment.
‘We can now categorically say patients are dying in this situation.’
A survey of NHS nursing staff for the report found 67 per cent are delivering care every day in overcrowded or unsuitable places. Some 91 per cent said the care was unsafe.
One nurse revealed how patients were dying ‘on trolleys and chairs in the corridor and waiting room’.
Another told how a 90-year-old dementia sufferer was left scared and crying because no one was able to help.
She added: ‘Seeing that lady, frightened and subjected to animal-like conditions is what broke me. At the end of that shift, I handed in my notice with no job to go to.’
Another nurse said a cancer patient whose immunity was very low because of her treatment was left in a busy spot in the path of a staff room and toilet in a hospital in the South West of England.
The nurse said: ‘She was very upset and crying. We put screens around her but it was constantly busy. That poor lady eventually passed away.’
The report comes just days after figures revealed hospitals left a record 518,000 patients languishing on trolleys in A&E for 12 hours or more last year.
Previous research by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine found long waits in A&E are likely to have contributed to 14,000 deaths in 2023.
Given the rise in long waits last year, the fatalities are likely to be even higher.
The issue of long A&E waits has come to the fore in recent weeks amid a surge in flu, with around 5,000 beds a day filled with flu patients.
The RCN said flu levels this year were higher than last year but not unusual compared with previous years and the Government must not be allowed to use it as an excuse for poor care.
The bed shortages are being fuelled by rising demand for care and by bed-blockers.
An average of 12,591 hospital beds in England were filled each day last week with patients who were medically fit for discharge but were unable to leave.
A survey of NHS nursing staff for the report found 67 per cent are delivering care every day in overcrowded or unsuitable places. Some 91 per cent said the care was unsafe. Pictured: File photo
Previous research by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine found long waits in A&E are likely to have contributed to 14,000 deaths in 2023. Pictured: File photo
Many will have been waiting for a place in a care home or for care to be arranged in their own home.
Caroline Abrahams, of Age UK, said: ‘[NHS founder] Nye Bevan must be turning in his grave: the apparent normalisation of ‘corridor care’ is an affront in a civilised society and for the sake of the public and staff alike must cease.
‘It’s hard to think of a more certain way of both undermining public trust in the NHS and the retention of skilled nurses than tolerating very sick older people being ‘stacked up’ in passages, as if they were lorries on a motorway.’
Mr Streeting said: ‘I cannot and will not promise that there won’t be patients treated in corridors next year – it will take time to undo the damage that has been done to our NHS.’
Duncan Burton, chief nursing officer at NHS England, said: ‘Increasing levels of demand have resulted in extreme pressures on services.
‘The impact this has on the experiences of patients and staff, as highlighted by the RCN, should never be considered the standard to which the NHS aspires.’