NHS Corridor Care

Debate between Rosena Allin-Khan and Anna Dixon

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[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.