NHS Corridor Care

Debate between Rosena Allin-Khan and Judith Cummins

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[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.