NHS Confederation responds to survey on corridor care

Responding to the Royal College of Physician’s survey suggesting that corridor care is no longer confined to the winter period, Rory Deighton, acute and community care director at the NHS Confederation, said: 

“This new survey paints a deeply worrying picture of the use of corridor care and its impact on staff. Corridor care has often been used as a last resort in winter to increase hospital capacity in the face of surging demand. But with the most recent data showing that the health service has been seeing incredibly high demand over the summer months as well it is unfortunately not surprising to hear that NHS staff have been left with little choice but to use temporary areas to treat patients.

“There is no easy fix, but the NHS and partners are working incredibly hard to bolster community support to care for people closer to home and reduce demand on hospitals. The lack of suitable infrastructure for surge capacity is a challenge for some hospitals, which is why we’ve been urging the government to allow private capital investment into more parts of the NHS – including the acute sector – in order to build new facilities.”