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The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has described new testimony from nurses about the state of corridor care across the UK as ‘distressing, damning and exactly what we see every single day in our departments’.
And the College says this reinforces the need to address this crisis.
More than 430 nurses described the conditions they are working in and what patients are enduring in a survey conducted by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), that has been published on Thursday.
Just some examples shared include how a nurse witnessed a patient left in a chair for four days, a patient dying after choking undetected in a corridor and nurses holding up sheets to try and protect the dignity of a patient while they underwent an intimate procedure.
One nurse went as far as saying the conditions are “a type of torture”.
Their accounts were gathered between 2 January and 9 January 2026, revealing nursing staff are treating patients in cold corridors, dining rooms, staff kitchens and offices.
The experiences of nurses build on and updates the RCN’s report published this week last year, titled ‘On the frontline of the UK’s corridor care crisis’.
Dr Ian Higginson, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said, “This work by the Royal College of Nursing makes for incredibly tough reading. It’s distressing, damning and exactly what we see every single day in our departments.
“These deeply personal testimonies aren’t just stories – it’s the daily reality for patients and their nurses, who work alongside our members and their colleagues in Emergency Departments.
“Last year, when RCN released their first report on corridor care, we said that it must represent a watershed moment for the government, a line in the sand. Yet, 365 days on, the nurses voices show our patients are still in corridors, and there is no credible plan to get them out.
“So called ‘corridor care’ takes an immense toll on patients, who will be facing long waits in these conditions. And it takes an immense toll on our clinicians who are trying their upmost best to deliver quality care in these conditions.
“Our patients are being forced to endure these conditions, often for hours, if not days, because hospitals are full to bursting. We can’t move patients out of our departments, and into wards, because there are no available beds for them. Those beds are often taken up by patients who have experienced delays in their care, and who no longer need to be in hospital, but can’t leave, because of the lack of social care options.”
The new report also contains public polling which found:
- As many as two in ten (18%) UK adults have witnessed care being delivered in a corridor or other non-clinical spaces in the last six months.
- 88% of respondents across the UK said tackling unsafe care is an urgent priority
- Meanwhile in England, 69% said Wes Streeting’s pledge to end corridor care by the end of parliament is too slow.
Dr Higginson said: “Nurses have given their verdict loud and clear. So too have our members, and the public – they all want the crisis in EDs tackled with urgency.
“The Health Secretary said this week the government is ‘determined to consign corridor care to the history books’ and has committed to ending corridor care by the end of 2029. We welcome this. This problem can’t be solved quickly. It has been years in the making. But we do need a credible plan that starts now.
“We look forward to working with the government, and healthcare leaders, to implement meaningful solutions, many of which lie outside the walls of our EDs.”
It comes after the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Emergency Care last year published a report, compiled by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, on corridor care. It found almost one in five patients in EDs were being cared for in trolleys or chairs in corridors in England during summer.
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