Its president, Dr Ian Higginson said the expansion of sites such as urgent treatment centres would “not make a dent in the number of people who are enduring long waits on trolleys in inappropriate places such as corridors”.
He said: “These services focus on the least unwell patients, and it’s the most unwell or those with mental health problems who are filling our corridors.
“Such centres are also a sticking plaster over the failure to properly commission primary care services for patients with non-emergency medical, mental health and dental problems.”
I will end undignified, unsafe ‘corridor care’
By Wes Streeting
In a crisis, normal behaviours can go out the window. If a crisis is prolonged, they can be lost for good, replaced by makeshift solutions that eventually become engrained.
No health secretary or NHS leader ever told the service to start treating patients in corridors. But as the practice continued and became more common, those in positions of power turned a blind eye to the problem and normalised it.
When I came to office, the NHS used benign nomenclature like ‘temporary escalation spaces’ to describe patients being treated in corridors, cupboards, even a Costa Coffee, where patients were lined up in one overflowing hospital.
Front-line staff shouldn’t be blamed for having to make such extreme accommodations. I know that the sight of patients suffering such poor levels of care leaves staff with a moral injury themselves, often causing them to pack in the profession. Indeed, it is staff groups like the Royal College of Nursing that raised the alarm on corridor care.
This is a problem of institutional complacency. Corridor care has been baked into standard practice for dealing with busy periods. It has effectively been shrugged off and accepted as a normal part of NHS life.
But it is not normal, and it must not be accepted. Corridor care is undignified and often unsafe. I wouldn’t want any member of my own family to receive hospital treatment in full view of passers by, laid out on a trolley in a hospital gown. I am determined that by the end of the parliament, no one’s family will be put through that.
Before you treat a condition, you’ve got to diagnose it. The NHS had previously never defined corridor care or measured it. We don’t know today how common it is. I have changed that, data in now being collected, and the first round will be published next month.
There are reasons to be optimistic. Parts of the NHS are beginning to lead a fightback against corridor care. They are showing that it is eminently possible to clear their corridors of patients, even during busy spells.
Take Queens Hospital in Romford. They have both the fortune and sometimes misfortune of having the Health Secretary as one of their local MPs. So, at the height of winter pressures, broadcasters sent cameras in to show patients lining the corridors at one of my local A&Es.
I’ve returned to Queens twice in the last month, taking the cameras back with me, to show them the progress that’s been made. Even following the bank holiday weekend and amid resident doctor strikes, we walked through empty corridors. I’m told there were three patients in a corridor earlier that day – a year ago it would have been ten times that number.
Queens had installed a frailty line for GPs, care homes and local authorities, staffed by geriatricians. The majority of cases resulted in them receiving treatment somewhere other than an A&E.
Our new frailty Same Day Emergency Centre is helping reduce the number of older patients being cared for in our corridors, getting them assessed faster, receiving care earlier, and away from the stress and chaos of the emergency room.
Other hospitals across the country have had similar successes. Senior doctors are being involved in decision-making earlier. Real-time data is being analysed to predict busy periods, so they can focus on discharging patients waiting to leave, and free up beds in advance.
The results in those hospitals that have grabbed this issue by the horns are inspiring. In Hull, the numbers of patients waiting in an ambulance outside the hospital are down by more than a quarter. Royal Blackburn has cleared its main corridor. Blackpool has almost halved the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E. West Hertfordshire has gone from 102nd in the A&E league tables to second.
Those hospitals are showing that things can get better. My job is to take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS. We’re sending crack teams of top clinicians into the hospitals struggling most with corridor care, to work with local leaders to clear their corridors.
We’re not sitting on our hands until next winter. We’re going to build the roof while the sun is shining. I’m investing £215m in 40 urgent treatment and same day emergency centres, which will be there for non-life threatening incidents, like kids who’ve come off their skateboard or elderly patients who’ve had a fall. These will unclog A&Es and make sure the sickest and most vulnerable patients are prioritised quickly.
The NHS is a system – if one part of it fails, the effects are felt throughout. Our investment in 2,000 more GPs will cut down the millions of patients who go to A&E each year because they could not get a GP appointment. We are getting the NHS and social care working together as Neighbourhood Health Teams – so more people can be cared for in the comfort of their own home.
Rising levels of sickness in our society are placing ever growing demands on the NHS. We have to rip up the old model of A&E, so it can once again provide safe, timely, dignified care for all who need it.
By making sure every patient receives the right care, in the right place, at the right time, we will right the wrong of corridor care.
Wes Streeting is the Health Secretary