A&E units are so crowded that patients are being attended to in hospital corridors, leading to the possibility that they are not getting the care they need.
In a survey of 1,174 A&E nurses in the Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) Emergency Care Association, 73% said they looked after patients in a “non-designated area” such as corridors every day and another 16% said they did so at least once a week.
The RCN said that patients being attended to in “completely unsuitable locations” was risky for them and demoralising for staff.
“Corridors nursing” is becoming increasingly widespread in hospitals as the emergency departments become too packed to take care of all the people seeking treatment, said A&E health professionals.
NHS bosses believe the RCN’s findings, which were based on a self-selecting sample of A&E nurses, exaggerated the scale of the problem.
Mike Adams, the union’s director for England said that the trend “corridor nursing” is on the rise because hospitals are short of staff and there are not enough beds for patients, and inadequate social care is adding to pressure on the NHS.
Full story in The Guardian, 26 February 2020