Widespread concerns about normalising the use of temporary care environments – often referred to as ‘corridor care’ – and the impact on patients and staff across all hospital settings have been highlighted in a new report from the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB).
Healthcare leaders, NHS Trusts and emergency department (ED) teams are being urged to better understand and manage the patient safety risks that temporary care environments present, particularly now as evidence suggests the issue extends beyond the traditional months of winter pressures.
The HSSIB investigation included visits to 13 hospitals, and insights from four other hospitals, over the period of August to December 2025 to evaluate how, where, when and why temporary care environments are used, what the associated patient safety risks are, and the impact on patients and staff.
All hospitals were experiencing issues with patient flow, leading to situations where demand exceeded capacity and a need to make use of temporary care environments.
These were located across hospital estates and included beds and trolleys in corridors, upright and reclined seating areas, extra spaces being made on wards or in ED cubicles, and other converted spaces such as side storage rooms, office spaces and family rooms.
Many doctors and nurses reported that using temporary care environments was the ‘best worse’ option, compared to the alternatives of leaving people at home, in ambulances or unseen in waiting rooms. Nevertheless, all staff were motivated to make things as good as they could for patients and there was a strong desire not to have to use corridor care.
When it came to patient feedback, the report highlighted that many patients said that despite privacy and dignity concerns they ‘felt safe’ and ‘well looked after’ in temporary care environments and that it was ‘better being here [on a trolley in a corridor] than sitting in a chair in the waiting room’.
Complex underlying issue of patient flow
The HSSIB has called for the adoption of a nationally agreed definition of temporary care environments and an improved understanding of how and when temporary care environments are used in NHS hospitals. A focus on overcoming the challenges of patient flow into and out of hospitals is also urgently needed, it added, as this would reduce the need to use temporary care environments.
In the meantime, the report outlined a series of local-level learning prompts for acute hospitals to consider when managing temporary care environments, including improving internal processes to support functions that assist timely discharge, such as using multidisciplinary teams in complex discharge processes.
Saskia Fursland, senior safety investigator at HSSIB, said: ‘Until there is a solution to the complex underlying issues related to patient flow, we must recognise that hospitals may have no choice but to use temporary care environments.
‘By working together with a shared understanding, healthcare leaders and NHS Trusts can better understand the use of temporary care environments and their impact on patient safety in a consistent way and systematically address the risks to patient safety.
‘In contrast to the chaotic picture that’s often presented of corridor care, in the course of our investigation we saw first-hand how individual NHS Trusts are adapting to ensure that the patient safety risks associated with using temporary care environments are being mitigated.’
Mitigation not eradication warning
Responding to the temporary care environments report, Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) president Dr Ian Higginson noted that it offers more evidence of ‘how dire the situation is’.
He said: ‘What’s most alarming is that there is nothing shocking about the findings – storerooms being converted to put patients in, difficulties monitoring patients, staff debating who is “less sick” to be put in a corridor, and clinicians experiencing burnout and fatigue because of the number of patients being cared for in spaces that were never designed to deliver care in.
‘Corridor care has become so normalised that even the recommendations contained in this report are primarily based on mitigation, not eradication.’
In December, the health and social care secretary Wes Streeting pledged to eradicate corridor care by 2029 in an interview with LBC.
But Dr Higginson has challenged this, saying: ‘So, the Government knows it’s happening, it knows the harm being caused – so where is the action and urgency to end it, rather than allowing the system to adapt to tolerate it?’
In June 2025, the UK Government pledged nearly £450m in its Urgent and Emergency Care Plan 2025/26 to address longstanding pressures across the NHS by reducing hospital admissions and lengthy discharge, tackling ambulance handover delays and eliminating corridor care.
‘Endemic and harmful’ corridor care
The HSSIB report follows research published in December by the RCEM’s Trainee Emergency Research Network, which found that nearly one in five patients attending UK EDs were receiving care in corridors or other non-standard areas, further highlighting the routine use of practices deemed unacceptable by national guidance.
This national, multicentre cross-sectional point prevalence study examined the prevalence of corridor and escalation area care across UK EDs, aiming to establish how frequently patients were treated in non-standard spaces during periods of crowding. The research was led by.
The study included 165 type 1 EDs, representing approximately 72.4% of all UK departments providing consultant-led, 24-hour emergency care. Data were collected during five predefined snapshots between 3 and 12 March 2025, selected to reflect variation in time of day and day of the week. Across these snapshots, 56,881 patients were present in participating EDs.
Corridor care and operational strain
Overall, 17.7% of patients (n=10,042) were receiving care in escalation areas. The proportion of patients in escalation areas ranged from 15.5% to 21.1% across individual snapshots, while 69.8% to 89.6% of sites reported using escalation areas at any given time.
More than half of escalation area patients were treated in non-clinical spaces such as corridors or waiting rooms, accounting for between 52.7% and 58.0% of cases. At every snapshot, the number of patients awaiting an inpatient bed exceeded the number being cared for in escalation areas, with between 25.0% and 44.4% of ED patients waiting for admission.
The study also reported substantial operational strain, with the median ED occupancy ranging from 1.0 to 2.4 patients per cubicle. Between 10.5% and 26.2% of departments had no available resuscitation cubicle.
Paediatric patients and those presenting with mental health conditions were found to be receiving care in escalation areas at all time points, despite guidance stating this should not occur.
The authors noted that variation in local definitions and practices restricted standardisation, although they did provide guidance to participating sites to improve consistency. In addition, the snapshot design captured point prevalence rather than patient-level exposure across entire ED stays and therefore the true proportion of patients experiencing escalation area care is likely to be underestimated, they added.
As the presence of care in escalation areas was found to be widespread and routine in UK EDs, contrary to national guidance, the authors highlighted the need for future research to examine associated patient-level outcomes and to evaluate interventions aimed at improving patient flow, particularly for those awaiting inpatient beds.
Harm associated with long ED waits
Commenting on the ‘shameful practice of corridor care’ being endemic, Dr Higginson said: ‘We are very concerned about the harm associated with long waits in EDs and how it puts patients’ lives at risk – for every 72 patients who wait between 8-12 hours before admission, there is one excess death. This should not be happening in a wealthy country.
“It is also worrying that these findings were from March and not in the peak of winter, which shows that corridor care is an issue all year round. It can’t be blamed on hiccups or flu.’
He added: ‘The priority is to improve the way hospitals work, and to ensure that patients who don’t need a hospital bed aren’t in one, rather than focussing on redirection measures at the ED’s front door. Only then will we start to see patients moving out of our corridors, into the beds they need.
‘This study shows the urgency of the situation. We cannot wait years for things to improve. Patients and hard-working ED staff have been frustrated by the lack of action across the UK, and deserve better from their health service leaders, and politicians.’