Accident and Emergency Departments
(asked on 24th February 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve transparency in reporting patient harm occurring in accident and emergency departments.
The Government is committed to transparency in reporting patient harm in the National Health Service. The Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) service allows frontline workers in NHS providers to record and analyse their own patient safety incidents in order to identify trends. At the national level, NHS England reviews hundreds of incidents each week via LFPSE, looking for risks that can be acted on, including by issuing National Patient Safety Alerts and collaborating with partners to address issues identified.
We recognise that urgent and emergency care performance has not consistently met expectations in recent years and are committed to restoring the waiting standards set out in the NHS Constitution by the end of this Parliament, as outlined in the Medium-Term Planning Framework, which is available at the following link:
NHS England has also published guidance on the Model Emergency Department, setting out core principles and pathways for high-performing emergency departments, which is available at the following link:
We are also taking action to tackle corridor care by introducing new reporting arrangements and committing to publishing data on its prevalence for the first time, improving transparency and driving operational improvement. Where corridor care cannot be avoided, updated guidance has been published to support trusts to deliver it safely, while maintaining patient dignity and privacy. The updated guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/principles-for-providing-patient-care-in-corridors/