NHS Corridor Care

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered NHS corridor care.

I express my sincere thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time to the important subject of corridor care, and I declare my interest as a proud serving NHS emergency doctor working in A&E at St George’s hospital in my Tooting constituency. In my 21 years as a doctor—I know; I can hear the audible gasp because I do not look old enough—I have never felt more proud to serve with a group of individuals such as those at St George’s hospital. The leadership team, to which we welcome a new CEO in Mat Shaw, and the team of nurses, doctors, reception staff, porters and healthcare assistants in my emergency department, make me proud to go and do every single shift that I do there, and it feels like a pleasure, not a chore.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her fantastic work in the NHS as a doctor; it is much appreciated. Like many NHS workers, she struggles against the odds and sees on a daily basis the impact of corridor care. Does she agree that NHS staff feel frustration with corridor care as much as patients do, and that they want to act and see it end as much as anyone else? Crucially, the key is more staff. Is that not, ultimately, what we all want?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

My hon. Friend and I are not performing a double act today, but he leads me on perfectly to the next part of my speech, as I go on to say that “corridor care” is something of a misnomer. Treatment in a corridor, far away from oxygen, proper equipment and emergency cords to pull, without privacy or dignity, without access to decent and appropriate toilet facilities, and without the highest standard of infection prevention and control, cannot be classified as care in any realistic sense. It is important to say that the staff go above and beyond with what they have. It is not the case that patients are suffering in pain because the staff do not care or do not provide a first-class service; it is because, quite simply, a corridor or any other space not built to serve and care for patients in is not the right place for a patient to be.

It is not just corridors, because patients across the NHS have been seen in antenatal rooms, store cupboards, waiting rooms and even car parks, filling every conceivable inch of a hospital. Members can imagine that people are coming in feeling particularly vulnerable, and they are happy to get the care wherever they can get it. I have never heard of any of my colleagues across the country say that they have had a patient who refused to be seen in a cupboard; they are just grateful to be seen. Even the official definition of so-called corridor care is problematic. NHS data relies on local clinical judgment about whether an environment is safe and whether patients’ privacy and dignity are being maintained. Trusts are applying these standards differently, and some feel the need, sadly, to game the system to artificially lower their corridor care statistics.

[Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

I would just like to highlight that the Scottish Government do not record or publish any statistics on the number of patients being treated in corridors. However, we know that it happens. The Crosshouse hospital, which serves my constituency, was recorded in January as having one of Scotland’s most under-pressure emergency departments. It exceeded capacity by 50% in December, revealing corridor care conditions in the hospital. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to record accurate data so that we can track improvement?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am so sorry to hear of the situation in her community in Scotland. It is regrettable, and patients and their families deserve better. Absolutely, if we cannot accurately assess the issue in full, it is impossible to deal with, and I hope the Minister will talk today about how she will commit to revising this definition to make it more robust.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate and for allowing me to intervene. The Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS trust published data about patients in corridors for the first time only in May, and in that month it recorded 121 patients per day being treated outside clinical rooms and areas. A constituent of mine, Catherine, wrote to me to describe seeing at first hand elderly people waiting in corridors for hours with no family members to support them. Does the hon. Member agree that corridor care has moved from being an exceptional problem to an everyday issue in many NHS trusts, and that the Government must act to address the root cause of this issue?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

The hon. Member is right, but I know that the Government care deeply about this. This is not something on which I am in tension with the Government in any way. I have spoken to the Ministers and the Secretary of State, and I know that they are committed to acting and ensuring that every single patient across our country gets the best possible care. Let us be really clear: the NHS should not be a political football. Safe and dignified healthcare should not be a political football. I hope that we are all in agreement on this issue today. I would have hoped to see more Members on the Opposition Benches today, and I hope that their absence is not a reflection of how much they care about the issue, because, quite frankly, we owe it to all our communities to get this right.

I know from my own experience, as will other hon. Friends in the Chamber, that when someone comes to A&E, it is often the worst day of their life. It could be the worst day of their life because of their experience as a patient, or it could be the worst day of their life because someone they love—their child, their partner, their mother or their father—is dying or has died. When we think about the dignity and care that we give, we have to look at it holistically—not simply as a set of symptoms that we are treating but as a family and the experience that they take away with them of what has happened on that day. People are in tears, people are in pain, and we owe it to them to get this right.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

Many people in my constituency have written about experiencing corridor care, and that loss of dignity when vulnerable and elderly patients are sitting in corridors. Does the hon. Member agree that we desperately need urgent action to ensure that dignity is prioritised wherever care is given?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Allin-Khan]

That is absolutely right—the hon. Member makes a valid point. People can be enduring a heart attack; they can be losing a baby; they can have had a road traffic accident and be lying on a trolley, blocked and collared, or lying on a board and looking up at the ceiling, wondering when they might make it into the scanner. People will definitely be having a time in hospital that will be etched on their memory, and sadly for many patients, and many loved ones, that is the last day they will ever see—the A&E will be the last place they know.

In the NHS we want that experience to be as comfortable and reassuring as possible. We want the best possible care, delivered in the fastest possible time, to patients who are treated fairly, efficiently, and with compassion and dignity. Frankly, that is impossible in a corridor, even with the greatest will in the world. In my A&E at St George’s hospital we have patients in corridors, as we do across the country, but we have nurses who are there and dedicated to check their observations, ask if they need pain relief, and try to deliver—and they do—the best possible gold-standard care. But there is no privacy in a corridor, or in a cupboard, or anywhere where there should be, and that simply is not right. In emergency departments across the country, regardless of data that some trusts try to put forward to show that it is in only a certain number of places, we know from our inboxes that corridor care is everywhere.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. She has spoken about some of the impacts of this issue. My 80-odd-year-old mum was recently admitted to Airedale hospital with acute respiratory issues. She had to wait in a chair for over 12 hours, alongside my dad, in a very undignified way. Does my hon. Friend agree that ideally we should be preventing admissions for older and frail patients, and does she believe that the stronger proactive primary and community care services proposed by the Government with neighbourhood health teams could help to prevent some admissions for older and frail elderly people like my mum?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I hope my hon. Friend’s mum is making a swift and healthy recovery, and I am sorry to hear that that was her family’s experience. I agree that prioritising care for the frailer, elder population can often be dealt with more effectively before someone comes to hospital. I also know that my hospital of St George’s in Tooting has a special dedicated frailty unit that goes a long way in speeding things up for people. Good pilots are going on across the country, where care can be taken to our elderly community before people come in. Tackling social care is something I am coming to in my speech, because we could not have a speech on corridor care without a huge nod—or an entire body bend—to social care and the need to fix it.

While this situation is extremely hard for patients and their families, the toll it takes on healthcare staff is huge. By healthcare staff I do not just mean doctors such as myself, but nurses, porters, healthcare assistants and cleaners—we are one big family in the NHS, and no one job is more important than any other. We are unable to do any of our roles without all the others, and for that we are truly grateful. Knowing that they might be caring for a patient in their mid-80s, who is trying to hold back tears because they do not want to upset anybody very publicly in a corridor, is absolutely heartbreaking and takes a toll on their mental health. Our nurses, doctors and all the staff I have mentioned are going home absolutely burnt out—this is not what they trained and studied for, and not what they go to work to deliver. They go to work to deliver the best possible gold-standard care for the community that they care about.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

On my hon. Friend’s point about burnout, we are entering what for many Cornish men and women is the dreaded tourist season, when our population doubles or trebles. My constituents in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle are concerned about the chronic capacity issues and the impact of the tourist season on patient safety at Treliske, our one general hospital that covers the whole of Cornwall. Does my hon. Friend agree that NHS workforce planning and funding for places like Cornwall need to reflect the additional pressures placed on healthcare services during periods of peak tourist activity?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I remember meeting my hon. Friend before he became an MP when I visited a hospital in his community, and I know that he has been a powerful advocate from long before he came to this place. I thank him for that and for raising this issue. We often think about winter pressures and forget that different communities experience different pressures—it is not a one-size-fits-all situation. It is important to look at the tourist season in Cornwall, and I am hopeful that the Government take that into account in their planning.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be appalled, as we all are, to know that there are places up and down the country where bodies are being wheeled to the mortuary past living patients in corridors. People are spending hours in pain and distress, desperate for privacy, and exhausted staff are working while feeling that they have one arm tied behind their back.

[Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is being generous in taking interventions. There are few Members of this House, if any, who know about this subject in more detail than her. In Scotland, where my own constituents are facing the problem of corridor care, the Royal College of Nursing said a few weeks ago that we are “trailing behind” even what is happening in England, partly because the NHS in England is publishing statistics on corridor care. Does she agree that the Scottish Government should do the same so that we can track corridor care and therefore help resolve it?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

My hon. Friend is a powerful advocate for the people of Scotland. Yes, of course those statistics should be published, because in order to have any understanding of the issue, we have to have the data. Quite frankly, without the data, it is “not happening”. We should keep pushing for that and I hope that he puts the clip of him asking this question on social media to spark a little fire under some boffins to make that happen.

The reality is that corridor care is happening in every corner of the country. The drivers of the issue of corridor care are multifaceted, but one key cause that we cannot escape is our failing social care system that forces medically fit patients to sit and wait in hospital beds, seemingly endlessly. Without a hospital back door that works efficiently, we simply cannot get people through the front door to treat them effectively and move them on appropriately. The social care sector must be empowered because that will prevent hospital admissions in the first place and support timely discharges.

All sorts of unappealing names are given to people who have to spend a long time in hospital waiting for appropriate social care. Our vulnerable elderly, our grandmas and grandpas, are called bed blockers because they cannot get the social care that they need to safely be in their own homes. This requires a complete change in thinking and approach, one that understands the inherent link between the NHS and social care. Most significantly, we need leadership that is willing to address the crisis with the urgency it deserves, so that people get the highest quality of care.

[Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)]

One of my relatives went into hospital to get intravenous antibiotics but later died in that hospital due to being stuck there. She was ready to move on to a community hospital, but she gave up because she was scared in the hospital—they did not keep an eye on her, she fell out of bed and cracked her head open, and she later passed away. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need a lot more investment in social care to ensure that does not happen and our relatives do not have to go into hospital in the first place?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I am heartbroken to hear about the hon. Member’s relative. This is the point: anyone who works in a hospital understands that, just by being in an emergency department waiting room and accessing people who are unwell, it is possible to catch other illnesses.

One thing we try to do is prevent unnecessary admission, because we know that a vulnerable elderly person who comes to hospital and is admitted to a ward with people who are unwell is more at risk of catching illnesses. As in the case of the relative of the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), people can be vulnerable and not in an appropriate bed. There may not be enough staff able to check on them appropriately. Without tackling social care, we will never get on top of that issue. I am truly sorry to hear about the hon. Member’s relative. Simply put, we cannot dither or delay; we need answers to the social care crisis, and we need them quickly.

Another group of people who are very often overlooked are mental health patients. They continue to spend extraordinary amounts of time waiting in A&E. People experiencing a mental health crisis are two-and-a-half times more likely to face long delays in A&E. Just for a moment, let me paint a picture of what that looks like. The patient could be somebody with auditory or visual hallucinations who feels extremely scared and vulnerable. They may need security to ensure that they do not leave their room. They may be wondering what they have done to deserve this. They may not have staff there who know about their usual medication. Very often, they are shouting very loudly, and other patients will be concerned, not understanding that they have a mental health issue.

As doctors and nurses, we are not allowed to talk about somebody else in the hospital, so we can have a very loud A&E department, with someone who is very vulnerable—screaming and shouting and really suffering—being completely in the wrong place for so long and with everyone confused about why they are there. That is not appropriate, safe or dignified for mental health patients.

We are as far away as ever from parity between mental and physical health in the NHS. As I have just outlined, we witness that daily in emergency departments across the country. We need to create more partnerships between our emergency departments and mental health trusts, where mental health patients can be triaged and seen by a mental health team in a more dignified and appropriate manner.

St George’s hospital, where all hon. Members will know by now that I work my A&E shifts, is exploring a partnership with South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, which would set up an assessment unit to triage mental health patients outside the emergency department. That would be safer, more appropriate and more dignified, and a calmer and more pleasant environment in which those patients could be assessed by mental health professionals.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that often this is compounded when somebody has been arrested and police officers are sitting for hours? I was recently in A&E, and there were two police officers there for the duration that a member of the public was there. They may also need somewhere else to deal with that situation.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I think my hon. Friend has been on most of my last A&E shifts with me. [Laughter.] That is absolutely a common occurrence, and that is not the best, safest or most efficient place for any of our incredible teams of police officers and mental health nurses, who are trying to get on with their job. It is incredibly distressing. In parts of hospitals, colleagues tell me that they are waiting in relatives’ rooms with police officers and mentally unwell patients next to the resus area of an A&E department with bereaved families. None of that should be happening for anyone involved.

I am sure the Minister will agree that the best solution to this crisis will involve a holistic, multi-agency approach involving councils, social care providers and NHS trusts. As I have just outlined, this unacceptable and dangerous situation is shared not just by patients, but by their families and NHS staff, who are trying to do their best in a difficult situation.

Moving on to the professional bodies, corridor care has rightly been condemned by the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine—my royal college—the British Medical Association, and other professional bodies and trade unions. Some 65% of respondents to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s violence and aggression survey, which is due to be published later this year, said that care in inappropriate and non-clinical spaces contributes to the increase in violence and aggression towards staff and other patients. The impact of corridor care is clearly much more wide-reaching than we realise. It results in violence against our own NHS heroes—the very best of humanity—who, in a fractured and dangerous world, exemplify compassion, decency and selfless care for strangers. I can tell the House beyond a shadow of a doubt that staff in emergency settings are upset, traumatised and driven to tears of rage, and we know that NHS staff have to take a disproportionately large number of days off for the sake of their mental health.

[Adam Dance]

The hon. Member is making a fantastic speech. On the topic of staff, one of the biggest problems in Yeovil hospital is bullying culture, as we saw in the Baroness Amos report in relation to maternity. Does the hon. Member believe that staff should be free to speak up without the worry of losing their job?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Although it digresses from the debate about corridor care, I will happily answer his question. I think everybody in the NHS must be able to go to work free of intimidation, bullying and harassment. Wherever that happens, people should feel free to speak out—not to their direct line manager, because very often they are involved, but to a safe third party within the hospital, clinic or public setting where it happens, so that they will not be concerned about finding themselves moved or no longer in the job they love. I thank the hon. Member for raising that point; I have gone off topic, but it is an important point to acknowledge.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I am sure the hon. Lady understands how much support there is in the Chamber for this debate, and will be coming to a conclusion shortly.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

Thank you very much for raising that, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am nothing if not a talker. I am sorry that I am taking such a long time, and I will move forward quickly with my speech.

The Royal College of Emergency Care and I, as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on emergency care, have put together a number of recommendations. First, restore patient flow by reducing delayed discharges; secondly, focus equally on four-hour and 12-hour performance; thirdly, reform funding and incentives; fourthly, spread responsibility for patient flow across the hospital; and lastly, address inequalities in access and outcomes. We cannot have a debate like this without recognising the terrible inequalities that scar our healthcare service—we have to work to reduce the disproportionate burden of long waits on deprived communities, older patients and people with mental health needs. Those measures would make a real difference to hospital systems, patient experience, and the overall effectiveness of the NHS.

The founding principles of the NHS are stretched to breaking point every time someone waits for 10 hours, in terrible pain and sometimes in their own urine, under the harsh strip lights of a corridor, unable to feel that they can ask for help. It is completely undignified. The Minister will be very familiar with the stats we have sent to the Department, which show the disproportionate number of deaths in our country that are due to corridor care. The fact that we in the UK have people dying because they have been treated in a corridor is simply unacceptable to me and other Members of this House, so let us commit today to ending it once and for all, and ending corridor care forever.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Allin-Khan]

As I stand here now to give my closing remarks, I am filled with a sense of pride. There are very few occasions when we all come together across the House in unison on an issue. Today is an example of where Members from every party and those who sit as independents have come together to say: enough is enough, we all stand united against the scourge that is corridor care.

It would not be fair of me to single out individual contributions, because they were all worthy of accolades. Members have shared their own deeply personal experiences or those of their families. They have highlighted how important it is that we understand the geographical implications of how this is a challenge that does not require a one-size-fits-all approach.

I am really pleased to hear the commitments from the Minister, especially as we know that, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, 1,300 excess deaths occur every month due to long A&E waits. That is the equivalent of a plane crash of people dying every single week. We cannot allow that to happen. I appreciate everything the Minister said, but my closing request is this. Can we please do everything we can to heed the remarks of everyone across the House today and speed up whatever we can to ensure there is not a single excess death attributed to something that could be avoided?

For every person who dies when it could have been prevented, we have a family in grief and a life taken too soon. If we know there are things we could be doing—money we could be spending, a social care system we could be fixing to ensure people have extra precious time with their loved ones and that people have dignity on what is, on many occasions, the last day of their lives—we must spend every ounce of energy in the Department of Health and Social Care to fix this problem.

I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate and I thank the Minister. Let us end corridor care for good.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered NHS corridor care.