Nurses want a ban on “corridor care”, warning that waiting rooms at overstretched A&Es can have more than 50 patients sitting on the floor.
The Royal College of Nursing’s annual congress heard one doctor had to give a cancer diagnosis in a crowded corridor and that failings in the emergency care system are causing “serious and catastrophic harm”.
Nurse Shelley Pearce, who recently left her A&E job in the south of England, told the Brighton meeting the practice is “a blight on our healthcare system”.
She said: “24 hours in A&E is supposed to be a TV show, not your length of stay. I’ve seen more than 25 ambulances outside and the wait to be seen is over 12 hours. And there are people that have been [on a trolley] longer than 24 hours.
“We have corridor nursing. We have a whole waiting room with one triage nurse and there can be over 50 people sitting on the floor.”
Retired A&E charge nurse John Hill was left in an armchair for 18 hours when he went in with angina two weeks ago.
He said: “Corridor care just doesn’t work, it should be totally banned.”
And community nurse Fallon Scaife said patients often “begged” her not to send them to hospital as they found conditions in A&E so distressing.
The union’s members voted in favour of lobbying the Government to abolish corridor care. RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said: “A corridor is no place to die and no place to work either. Members have told us they’re so concerned about patient safety they fear court cases.
“These fears are evidence of just how unsafe conditions have become.”
Earlier this week, an RCN poll found 90% of A&E nurses worry patients get unsafe care and their dignity, privacy and confidentiality is compromised. And 80% said treatment in non-clinical areas was up since the start of last year.
The Department of Health said it was cutting waiting lists and boosting staff numbers, adding: “Everyone deserves access to the right care in the right place.”
