Overview

• Hospitals across England are struggling with record patient numbers due to winter flu, respiratory illnesses, and delayed discharges.
• More than 500,000 patients waited over 12 hours in emergency departments for a bed in 2024, a 25% increase from the previous year.
• Whittington Hospital in London advertised shifts for 'corridor care' nurses to handle patients treated in hallways due to overcrowding.
• Medical professionals warn that corridor care is unsafe, degrading, and linked to preventable deaths, with 14,000 excess deaths estimated in 2023 due to long A&E waits.
• The Royal College of Emergency Medicine and other organizations are urging the government to publish data on corridor care and implement emergency measures to expand hospital capacity and staffing.