More than 2,200 patients a day were subjected to corridor care in A&E departments last month, according to the first official figures on the practice released by NHS England.
The data for May shows that an average of 2,241 patients experienced corridor care in emergency departments each day, with a further 669 patients receiving care in similar makeshift settings elsewhere in hospitals.
What is corridor care?
NHS England formally defined “corridor care” in March 2026, setting out the criteria for when a patient is deemed to have received care in such conditions. Under the definition, a patient is considered to have experienced corridor care if they spend at least 45 minutes in a clinically inappropriate area of an emergency department or a general and acute ward. That threshold is set to be reduced to 30 minutes in 2027/28.
For the setting to qualify as corridor care, the space must be clinically inappropriate and unsafe, lack privacy, and compromise a patient’s dignity, including access to food, water and toilets. The environment must also prevent sleep because of light and noise, and must not have been confirmed as appropriate by the trust’s Infection Prevention and Control team.
The definition applies to patients receiving treatment, waiting for assessment, admission or transfer across both emergency departments and general and acute beds. It does not cover clinical spaces that were opened as part of planned winter pressure arrangements, but any care given in an unplanned setting is included. The previous term “temporary escalation space” has been removed, with “corridor care” now encompassing any non-designated clinical space.
Trusts most accountable
NHS analysis found that 20 trusts accounted for more than half of all corridor care cases in emergency departments, while a separate group of 20 trusts was responsible for more than two-thirds of corridor care cases elsewhere in hospitals.
According to a BMJ investigation published in December 2025, the three trusts reporting the highest number of patients in corridor care were Liverpool University Hospitals, Barking, Havering and Redbridge, and the Northern Care Alliance. The same investigation revealed that 79% of NHS trusts in England were providing care in corridors or makeshift areas in emergency departments, leading to at least half a million patients being cared for in temporary spaces in 2024-25. Some trusts reported that one in four patients in A&E departments were cared for in corridors last year.
Expert teams are being deployed to the most affected trusts to provide tailored support to leadership staff as part of efforts to tackle the problem.
The broader scale of the issue was highlighted by Age UK analysis, which found a 525-fold increase in instances of corridor care lasting 12 hours or more since 2015/16. In October 2025 alone, 54,314 people waited 12 hours or more after the decision to admit them to hospital. By January 2025, a record 518,000 patients experienced “trolley waits” of 12 hours or more in A&E.
Senior doctors have warned of a “well-proven association with harm to patients and death” linked to corridor care. Risks include falls, dehydration, delirium, inadequate monitoring, compromised infection control and lack of piped oxygen. Patients have reported feeling “forgotten and vulnerable,” experiencing a lack of privacy, dignity and access to basic necessities such as toilets and food, with end-of-life conversations reportedly taking place in corridors.
The practice is also described as “catastrophic” for staff morale, leading to burnout and some considering leaving the NHS. It creates tension between ambulance crews and emergency department staff because of handover delays and communication breakdowns, and can undermine safety culture by encouraging under-reporting of incidents.
The government has set a target to eradicate corridor care by the end of this Parliament. Alongside the publication of monthly data, NHS England is investing in 40 new and expanded same-day emergency care and urgent care centres to ease pressure on A&Es, and has provided a £4.6 billion funding boost for adult social care. Neighbourhood Health Teams are being established to join up NHS and social care. The Royal College of Nursing has called for a fully funded action plan to eradicate the practice.