STREETING TO END CORRIDOR CARE BY 2029- UK’s nurses union says corridor care is “a type of torture”
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has pledged to end the use of corridor care in England by 2029, if not sooner. However, NHS staff groups are sceptical of his promise, given that many hospitals are overloaded so often, and not just during the winter.
The UK’s nurses’ union has warned that corridor care is “a type of torture” that is leading to patients dying and causing NHS staff to have nightmares. Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN’s general secretary, said: “This testimony from nursing staff reveals once again the devastating human consequences of corridor care, with patients forced to endure conditions which have no place in our NHS.”
The NHS’s safety watchdog in England warned last week that temporary care environments in hospitals posed serious risks to patients, including infection, lack of call bells and problems monitoring them. Some patients have died, undetected by staff, while in such areas, the Health Services Safety Investigations Body added.
Meanwhile, Streeting has stated that initiatives such as “super clinics” and using AI to help assess patients have helped hospitals in areas with high unemployment treat patients more quickly and get them back to work.
The health secretary said that the results of the NHS’s “further faster 20” programme showed what NHS trusts could achieve if they adopted innovative methods to cut backlogs.
