Hospitals treat 2,000 patients in corridors in May

More than 2,000 patients were treated in hospital corridors across Herefordshire and Worcestershire last month, according to NHS data.

The majority of those treated in hospital corridors were at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust with 1,723, an average of 56 a day.

Wye Valley NHS Trust recorded a daily average of 11 patients treated in hospital corridors, or 344 in total.

Hayley Flavell, chief nursing officer at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We recognise that corridor care is unacceptable and creates a poor experience for patients and low morale for our hard-working teams."

She added: "Although always subject to safe staffing levels and careful risk assessment, we are committed to ending its use in line with national guidance and are developing further actions to support improvements.

"Despite continuing to face high levels of demand for our services, we are steadily making progress on improving patient flow through our hospitals.

"We have seen a reduction in ambulance handover delays and shorter lengths of stay in our emergency departments over recent weeks as a result of actions already put in place alongside our local health system partners.

"We are continuing to work hard to ensure patients are prioritised appropriately and receive the quality, safety and dignity of care they deserve, as well as continuing to remind our local population to use NHS 111 and alternatives to [emergency care] whenever possible."

Corridor care statistics, collected by NHS England from acute trusts, are a new metric that started to be measured in May.

The metric refers to patients being treated on trolleys or beds in corridors due to a lack of available space.

Wye Valley NHS Trust has also been contacted for comment.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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