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 reduce the use of temporary care environments in patient care.

The Government recognises that long waits in accident and emergency are unacceptable and lead to worse patient outcomes. Patients should expect and receive the highest standards of service, and we are determined to tackle the issue of corridor care.

NHS England published guidance in September 2024 regarding the use of temporary escalation spaces, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/principles-for-providing-safe-and-good-quality-care-in-temporary-escalation-spaces/

In January, we published the National Health Service’s mandate and planning guidance for 2025/26, which set out the priorities and actions to be taken to reform and improve urgent and emergency care services. This includes increasing the proportion of patients admitted, discharged, and transferred from an emergency department within 12 hours across 2025/26 compared to 2024/25.

We will shortly set out the further improvements and actions to be taken to support urgent and emergency care services this year.