Hospitals vow to end corridor care by November

NHS bosses have vowed to end corridor care in Worcestershire’s hospitals by November 17.

Patients spent more than 11,000 hours waiting in A&E corridors in August.

An average of 38 patients a day spent more than 45 minutes receiving so-called “corridor care” in Worcester’s Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

The situation was similar at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, where an average of 31 patients a day spent at least 45 minutes waiting in a corridor.

Hayley Flavell is chief nursing officer at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs both hospitals.

Her report to the trust’s board meeting on Tuesday, October 13 said: “In total [patients] spent 11,797 hours occupying these spaces, which is an increase compared to July. The emphasis is ongoing to eradicate corridor care as part of a system wide response to improve flow.”

Managing director Stephen Collman said the trust is aiming to end corridor care in its hospitals by November 17, and would monitor progress on a daily basis.

“We want to be really ambitious about this given the amount of concern it causes colleagues and patients,” he said.

Mr Collman said the process of getting patients out of A&E and into other treatment areas such as same-day emergency care (SDEC) will be streamlined.

“If you come into the department and they feel you meet the criteria for one of those areas, you’ll go – there’s no debate about it.

“At the moment there’s a bit of ‘we’ve signed the criteria off but there’s still a clinical conversation going on between the two’ and that can cause delay, that can cause problems.

“Ultimately, we keep using the phrase ‘ED is not a waiting room’.”

But Mr Collman warned that by ending corridor care, the trust has to make sure problems aren’t being moved somewhere else.

“In particular, we are not going to hold that risk outside in terms of ambulances.”

Ms Flavell had said earlier in the meeting: “We are still seeing patients being cared for in our corridors, including in ED.

“It’s a large number on a daily basis – 30-plus. It’s not the way we want to care for our patients. We are working hard to eradicate corridor care out of our organisation.”

She offered assurances that patients were well looked after while in corridors but insisted: “We are not normalising it.”