Corridor care being "normalised" with record 518,000 patients facing trolley waits of 12 hours or more last year

EMBARGO: 00:01 Monday 13th January

The Liberal Democrats have warned that corridor care in hospitals is being “normalised,” as analysis by the party reveals there were a record 518,000 “trolley waits” of 12 hours or more last year.

It comes as it emerged a hospital has recently advertised for "corridor care” nurses to care for patients waiting for a bed.

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Helen Morgan said the scale of the issue was a “scandal” and that the government was “asleep at the wheel.” She called on the Health Secretary Wes Streeting to announce an emergency plan to increase the number of hospital beds and end corridor care.

The research by the Liberal Democrats looks at how many patients waited over 12 hours in A&E after a decision to admit them to hospital, commonly known as trolley waits. It shows a record 518,000 patients waited 12 hours or more to be admitted to hospital from A&E in 2024, a record high and a 25% rise on the previous year. Shockingly, the number of patients waiting 12 hours or more to be admitted to hospital from A&E last year was up 23-fold from 8,272 in 2019.

Long waits at A&E are extremely dangerous and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates that in 2023 14,000 deaths were associated with long waits in A&E.

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the government to urgently increase the number of hospital beds to bring bed occupancy levels down to the safe level of 85%. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine says that it currently stands at 93%.

Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson, Helen Morgan MP, said:

“It is a scandal that corridor care is becoming normalised with thousands of patients left on trolleys for hours or even days on end.

“We are seeing shocking and dangerous long waits in hospital corridors, putting patient lives at risk and leaving staff struggling to cope.

“The government looks to be asleep at the wheel and must take rapid action to tackle this crisis. This must start with the Health Secretary producing an emergency plan to protect patients from this ongoing disaster. 

“It must include an urgent expansion of the number of hospital beds to get back to safe levels and a pandemic-style emergency recruitment campaign to bring staff out of retirement and back into the workforce.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Sunday Times: Hospital advertises for ‘corridor care’ nurses to ease NHS crisis. Available here.

The data from the NHS can be found here (Source). Monthly data can be found here.

Deaths in A&E - Royal College of Emergency Medicine here.

RCEM analysis - Beds data for December 2024 shows: 

• 100,480 beds were available, which is 331 beds more than November 2024 and 1,289 more than December 2023.

• Bed occupancy stood at 93%, which is 1.1 percentage points lower than the previous month but unchanged from December 2023.

• It would require 9,471 more beds to bring occupancy down to the safe level of 85%.