Call to end ‘corridor care’

Doctors and nurses in Wales have launched a joint petition calling for an immediate end to the unsafe and undignified practice of ‘corridor care’.

BMA Wales and the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) are calling on the Welsh Government to take urgent action to address the spectacle of patients being treated in inappropriate settings, such as hospital corridors, waiting rooms and even dining areas.

Speaking today at a launch event in Cardiff, BMA Cymru Wales council chair Iona Collins and RCN Wales executive director Helen Whyley warned that the sight of patients being cared for in unsafe and inappropriate surroundings was becoming normalised.

Pointing to the critical shortage of beds, Dr Collins said that fundamental principles of the NHS such as providing treatment based on clinical priority were not being met, with patients being left in corridors to face dangerous and dehumanising conditions.

Ms Whyley meanwhile said she hoped the joint petition would give a voice to doctors and nurses, many of whom often felt powerless to speak out about the conditions facing their patients.

She said: ‘Every day our members, our nurses, our doctors, our healthcare support workers and other healthcare staff are being asked to care for patients in inappropriate places, places that are undignified and unacceptable.

‘It isn’t acceptable to hear about an elderly lady who sat in a chair for six days while she was being treated. It isn’t acceptable to hear about a person who had a mental health condition being pushed in front of a fire exit because there was nowhere else to put them.

‘It’s difficult for [healthcare staff] to stand up and to speak out about that and so it's becoming normalised, which we just cannot have in a modern gold standard, NHS services that the people of Wales rightly deserve.’

The association and the RCN are encouraging members of the public to sign and support the petition, which was drawn up in response to overwhelming testimony from healthcare staff over the hugely detrimental impact of so-called ‘corridor care’.

This testimony includes reports of ‘multiple patients with severe injuries to bones are sitting in chairs waiting for beds for 48 to 72 hours’ to patients at a community hospital receiving care in a dining area and without access to facilities such as piped oxygen or suction.

Diabetes and endocrinology consultant Atul Kalhan is one of the many doctors to have shared his experiences of corridor care with the BMA.

Based at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in south Wales, Dr Kalhan spoke of the effect conditions in the health service were having on patients and staff.

He said: ‘In my three-decade long career as a physician, I can say with confidence that demand for services and the pressure on staff is the highest I have ever seen and yet there are limited additional resources to meet this demand.

‘Reclining chairs are now being offered to patients, this is being normalised and it’s completely wrong. On my last on-call shift, I reviewed an elderly man placed on a chair waiting to be admitted, I went back to the hospital 24 hours later and he was still there, it’s heartbreaking.

‘I was the on-call consultant over the weekend. Whilst there, I reviewed frail elderly patients sitting on chairs in a corridor, in makeshift waiting rooms and in an ambulance. There was an octogenarian with a cerebral bleed, a confused woman with advanced dementia. This is unsafe clinical practice and unacceptable.

‘This needs to change – all patients deserve dignity and a place to rest, that’s why I’m backing the BMA and RCN’s calls to put an end to corridor care.’

The reported experiences of frontline staff follows on from data published last month by the RCEM (Royal College of Emergency Medicine) highlighting the extent of the problem in the NHS in Wales.

In its survey, the RCEM found that, during January and February this year, staff at all 12 emergency departments in Wales had had to resort to treating patients in areas such as corridors and waiting rooms owing to lack of bedspace.

In calling for the phenomenon of corridor care to become a never event within the health service, the petition sets out a number of recommendations designed to bring about change.

These include taking steps to record and report on instances of corridor care and seeking to reduce hospital admissions through the prioritisation of prevention and early intervention and through greater investment in community-based health services.

The petition also calls on the Welsh government to deliver of a ‘costed workforce plan’ to ensure future patient demand can be met.

Sign the petition