More than 2,200 patients a day were subjected to corridor care in NHS emergency departments in May, newly published figures have revealed. An additional 669 patients each day received care in similarly inappropriate settings elsewhere in hospital, meaning nearly 3,000 people daily were treated in spaces not designed for clinical use. The data, released for the first time after the NHS pledged to publish such figures, paints a stark picture of the pressure bearing down on the health service.
What constitutes corridor care
Under the NHS’s formal definition, agreed in March and implemented from May, corridor care applies to any patient who spends 45 minutes or more in a clinically inappropriate location. Such locations explicitly include hallways, waiting rooms, cafes and cupboards. The threshold is aligned with the W45 protocol for ambulances, and NHS England has said it aims to reduce the limit to 30 minutes by 2027–28. Corridor care is considered unacceptable because it compromises privacy, dignity and the quality of clinical observation. A review by Healthwatch England in December found patients had been left on broken beds in pitch-black corridors for 24 hours with no privacy. Reports have also emerged of patients dying while waiting for care and of diabetic patients being left without food for hours.
Government and NHS response
Health Secretary James Murray described corridor care as “unacceptable, undignified and has no place in our NHS”. He said the new data aimed to “shine a spotlight” on where the problems are greatest and stressed that the “vast majority” of corridor care occurs in a small number of organisations. “We have already deployed expert teams to help struggling trusts turn performance around. Ending corridor care for good will take time and different areas will need different solutions, but we are determined to eradicate this practice,” he added. The government has pledged to eliminate corridor care entirely by the end of this Parliament. Specialist teams from the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme are being sent to trusts with the highest rates of corridor care to provide tailored support focusing on discharge, patient flow and data analysis. Professor Francesca Swords, national medical director for the NHS, said corridor care is “totally unacceptable” and “should have no place in the NHS”. The commitment to publish monthly data was welcomed by Healthwatch England and the Royal College of Physicians.
Record A&E pressures and rising waiting lists
The corridor care figures come as A&E departments experienced their busiest month on record in May, with 2,457,398 attendances – an increase of 25,000 on the previous record set in March. Professor Swords noted that “A&E staff bore the brunt of the heatwave in May, as the hot weather took its toll on the public”. Performance against the four-hour target fell to 75.7 per cent of patients seen within four hours, down from 76.9 per cent in April and below the government and NHS England target of 78 per cent. The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E from the decision to admit to actual admission stood at 50,212 in May, up from 47,750 in April, though below the record of 71,517 set in January. A further 128,590 patients waited at least four hours from the decision to admit to admission. Meanwhile, the waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England rose for the first time in six months. An estimated 7.22 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of April, relating to 6.11 million patients – up from 7.11 million treatments and 6.02 million patients at the end of March. The increase reversed the fall seen in March, returning the list to its February level.
Concentration of cases and wider context
NHS analysis found that 20 trusts accounted for more than half of all corridor care cases in emergency departments, and the same number accounted for over two-thirds of cases elsewhere in hospitals. Before the official data, an investigation by The BMJ in December 2025 reported that 79 per cent of NHS trusts in England had treated patients in corridors or makeshift areas, estimating that at least half a million patients experienced such care in 2024–25. Another estimate suggested approximately one million A&E patients had been placed in corridors or similar temporary spaces over the year to September 2025. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at The King’s Fund, said corridor care “should never have been normalised” and is a “visible sign of how patient safety and experience are being compromised”. The government also confirmed locations for 40 new and expanded urgent care sites to help ease pressure on A&E departments.
