NHS Confederation responds to new HSSIB corridor care report

Responding to the Health Services Safety Investigations Body’s (HSSIB) new report on corridor care, Rory Deighton, acute and community care director at the NHS Confederation, said:

“As this report highlights, corridor care has gone from being a last resort during the busiest periods of winter to an increasingly common way of managing the rising demand the NHS is facing. We know that corridor care is undignified, unsafe and frustrating for patients and their families, and leaves NHS staff with the moral injury of being unable to provide quality of the care they would like to.

“But HSSIB also highlights that many patients reported that being treated in temporary areas was better than sitting in waiting rooms, while staff described it as the ‘best worse’ option compared to leaving people at home, in ambulances or in waiting rooms. This demonstrates the challenging choices that health leaders are having to make in order to maintain patients safety.

“Health leaders continue to work on the root causes of corridor care, trying to ensure flow through the system by improving patient discharge, working with local authorities to improve social care support, and prioritising vulnerable older patients at the front door through increased frailty screening. But until the challenges in social care are tackled it is likely that the practice will unfortunately continue.”