Is corridor care now the norm in hospitals?

Several newspapers have reported that the University Hospitals Sussex NHS trust is advertising for a doctor to specialise in so-called “corridor care”. There were also reports last month of nurses being recruited for similar work.

Does this mean that corridor care is now normal across the NHS?

Broadly speaking, corridor care means people being treated in an unsuitable place, such as a corridor, storage area, waiting room, office or carpark. This happens because there are not enough suitable spaces available to meet emergency demand. The practice certainly seems widespread. Last September, NHS England published guidance for “providing safe and good quality care in temporary escalation spaces”, despite noting that it is “not acceptable and should not be considered as standard”. 

Even so, the health secretary Wes Streeting told Parliament last month that “corridor care has been normalised”. Many doctors and nurses have also told recent ‘snapshot’ surveys that they have delivered corridor care. 

In a recent Royal College of Nursing (RCN) survey, covering December 2024 to January 2025, 67% of the 5,408 nursing staff who responded said they delivered corridor care on a daily basis. Another survey by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) found that 78% of the 961 physicians who responded had provided care in a temporary environment in the last month.

We should be careful not to assume that these percentages apply to doctors or nurses in general, as those with bad experiences may be more likely to respond to surveys on the subject. It does suggest that corridor care is a common feature of many hospitals, however.

As an RCN report published last year says, corridor care may be harmful for patients—if they do not have easy access to the water or oxygen that they might need, for example. It can also be distressing for staff, who are prevented from looking after people as compassionately and professionally as they would like to.

Extremely long waits for emergency admission have certainly been much more common in recent years, especially over the winter. This is not quite the same thing as corridor care, but there may be some overlap between the two.