Patients dying in hospital corridors, say nurses

One RCN member from the south-east of England said she was now working on corridors nearly every shift and had seen some particularly “harrowing” cases recently.

She described how one dying patient in her 90s, who had dementia and respiratory problems, had been left in a corridor for eight hours and staff had been unable to provide her with appropriate end-of-life care.

“The patient behind her was detoxing – he was vomiting and extremely abusive. It’s just not dignified. You take your dog to the vet and they get better care.

“We are not caring for patients in the way we would like to.”

In a statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday about the pressures being seen this winter, Streeting blamed the previous government.

“I want to be clear, I will never accept or tolerate patients being treated in corridors.

“It is unsafe, undignified, a cruel consequence of 14 years of failure on the NHS and I am determined to consign it to the history books.

“I cannot and will not promise that there will not be patients treated in corridors next year, it will take time to undo the damage that has been done to our NHS.

“But that is the ambition this government has.”

NHS England chief nursing officer Duncan Burton said “increasing demand” had put extreme pressure on the health service over recent months, and described this winter as “one of the toughest the NHS has experienced”.

“The impact this has on the experiences of patients and staff, as highlighted by the RCN report, should never be considered the standard to which the NHS aspires.”

Chris McCann, of the patient watchdog Healthwatch England, said: “These devastating stories shared by nurses echo experiences that people tell us about.

“Patients say they’re witnessing stressed and overstretched staff who are valiantly trying to cope with these extreme pressures.”