Hospital patients being treated in corridors

Yes he was lucky. There were three patients in the corridor in beds. All were being attended to.

theworriedwell

Lathyrus3

I’ve just read news reports of 100s of people going to hospital with flu.

They can’t all be seriously ill, can they? To the point where they need intensive help.

Are we expecting to be nursed in hospital when we are ill rather than at home, do you think?

They won't be getting admitted if they don't need to be.

That’s true.

Are they filling up the corridors and seats though, waiting ti be seen or immediate treatment like being given antibiotics?

I don’t have much experience of how admissions work.

Bed blocking causes a lot of this. Some people cannot be discharged because they need help when they are sent home and that is not available.

NHS nursing staff in England are predicting a “devastating” corridor care winter for patients in hospitals in the coming months, as new analysis reveals 12hr+ trolley waits for sick patients are surging, increasing by almost 9000%, a 90-fold rise in just 6 years.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) today accuses the government of acting with “insufficient urgency” since last winter, with the failure to invest in boosting capacity, in both hospital and community settings, as well as staff numbers, laying the ground for the situation to worsen.

www.rcn.org.uk/news-and-events/Press-Releases/corridor-care-surging-in-hospitals-as-nursing-staff-warn-of-devastating-winter-ahead

Jaberwok

My granddaughter is a blue light ambulance driver, she is 22 years old and in between shifts studying to qualify as a Paramedic. She tells us of a service under great pressure, not least because of getting through impossible traffic situations, patients who are obstinate, even violent, (she has been attacked twice) time schedules that are impossible to keep to, endless hold ups delivering patients into hospital care, hold ups collecting patients to take to their own homes, endless paper work, and so it goes on. She loves the job!! and I'm amazed at how committed she is. I don't know what the answers are, but going on strike is definitely not the answer when vulnerable people are on the receiving end. The resident doctors should be ashamed at even contemplating such cruel action.

I watch the documentary 999 programmes that track the ambulance drivers. (I've forgotten the name of the specific ambulance one) They are wonderful people and yes do love it when they can make a difference - as well as sadnesses.

Thank you Wyllow3. You're right, they are wonderful people and kindness itself.

I’ve recently been in a similar experience to Kate1949. 5 weeks ago my mother 90 had a fall in her bathroom and was taken to A&E . She has heart problems, had a uti and was dehydrated. She was on a trolley by the nurses station for 10 hours but was taken into a cubicle with curtains for a detailed exam , Catheter inserted and put in a drip and IV antibiotics. The dept had a dedicated cubicle for exams .
We got there at midday , within several hours trolleys were building up in the corridors , mostly with elderly people being brought in by ambulance.
The staff were incredible , all very professional, kind and caring and work their butts off.
Being by the nurses station I was earwigging and heard that other local hospitals had closed their a&e , they couldn’t take anymore patients.
Paramedics were waiting for handover , so they could go back out . It was crazy and a real eye opener.
Mum got a bed is a single room at midnight and was admitted to the ward at 5pm the following day . She spent her 90th birthday in a&e , but the staff came in and sang happy birthday and gave her a cake .
The staff are doing their best, they’re understaffed and the buildings aren’t large enough to cope with the high level of patients. Plus they’re understaffed in the diagnostic departments, so staff are waiting ages for the results of scans , X-rays and blood tests .
Plus if admitted patients are having to wait for a bed on the wards .
Having experienced a&e I have huge gratitude and sympathy for the staff , including the ambulance staff .

Allira

Well, as that was on the news last night and I thought the thread was related, then I thought it was pertinent.

I feel sorry for the staff , too, working in impossible circumstances.

Obviously no-one else thinks the same, that the more this happens, the more it becomes the norm and people accept this.

Not me. We are in this state because we have collectively allowed it to happen.
It’s a British thing. Being ever so grateful.

It’s a British thing. Being ever so grateful.
Saying "sorry" to someone if they bump into us.

It is illogical to be grateful for something you've paid for (ie out of your taxes). Part of why I get very fed-up - as I've taken so little back (no children/no married persons tax allowance...whilst that still existed/paying single person level of bills including Council Tax) = I darn well think it's fair to get what I've paid for from the NHS.

So I don't think I've ever understood the "be ever so 'umble and thankful" for what I've paid for anyway....

I work on a fair's fair "do my bit and expect to get my bit in return" basis.

Thought wouldnt occur to me of saying sorry to someone who bumped into me...I'm much more likely to stand there and look at them expectantly ..whilst waiting for their apology....and when (not if...!) it doesnt happen up goes my nose in the air and I probably shoot them a speaking look that could be summed up as "Hmmm....no-one taught them their manners obviously"....

NotSpaghetti

*Kate1949*, my mother-in-law also had great care in a corridor.
It wasn't a main thoroughfare but was definitely a corridor.

It was not how you think of it at all.

Yes it is…it’s a corridor!

As others say, no privacy at all and what about bedpans? It’s shocking that the NHS has come to this.

I have just noticed that, on BBC News report on the flu crisis from a hospital, few people, staff or patients, were wearing masks.

Last year I had an experience which still haunts me and I wasn’t the patient. DH had had major gastric surgery and about 3 weeks later he developed severe pain and other symptoms which were eventually diagnosed as an unidentified infection. He was taken to hospital by ambulance and spent the night on a trolley in a waiting room. The following morning he was moved to a corridor. It was busy, noisy and narrow. So narrow that I had to move away from him to allow trolleys or wheelchairs to pass by. Fortunately he had a catheter as the toilets weren’t nearby. The only way to get help from a nurse was to ambush them as they walked past. Whenever I left his side for any reason other patients would ask me for help. Could I get them food, drink or take them to a toilet. One elderly lady was struggling to make the hospital gown cover her properly and was getting embarrassed and distressed. I did manage to find a blanket to protect her dignity. Later in the day DH was discharged as they couldn’t find anything wrong. 2 days later he was admitted to a different hospital where he was kept in for a week and successfully treated. We had to take him there by car as it’s not the nearest to us. I’m glad that some people have been well looked after in a corridor but sadly this isn’t the case for everyone. DH is much better but still worries that he might have to go back there.

I'm sorry some of you have had bad experiences of corridors. I just think some treatment is better than no treatment. Grateful doesn't seem popular but I am.

No, Oreo
It was NOT how I had thought of being in a corridor.
Not what you would have chosen obviously.

...and just because it felt OK doesn't mean it's right.
Nobody thinks anyone should be treated - or even "observed" in a corridor.

Just saying.

No definitely not. However, my husband was treated and cured. The aftercare was brilliant too.

This is from February 2024:

We shouldn’t get comfortable with corridor ‘care’

www.health.org.uk/features-and-opinion/blogs/we-shouldn-t-get-comfortable-with-corridor-care#:~:text=This%20blog%20is%20with%20contributions,Trolley%20waits%20are%20also%20increasing.

Extracts:
For staff, there is consistent evidence that this practice leads to lower morale and poorer mental health outcomes in the workplace. It also impacts their ability to care for patients, as staff working in corridors don’t have direct access to – or room to use – routine equipment such as observation machines and patient hoists.

For patients and their families, the experience can be traumatising. Patients can feel invisible out of the sight of staff. The physical environment is distressing, with harsh lighting, little to no privacy and difficulty accessing basic needs such as water or even a toilet. As such spaces are not designed to accommodate people for long periods of time, families are left standing for hours, unable to leave their relative due to fears they will be alone or forgotten. As patients being treated in corridors are surplus to safe-staffing numbers, they are experiencing delays to their care, creating a risk to patient safety. Furthermore, patient confidentiality and privacy are near impossible to maintain in public spaces, and concerns around data are not to be ignored.

Corridor care was scarcely seen in practice a few years ago, so it certainly is not inevitable. No patient can be comfortable in a corridor – nor should staff or policymakers get comfy while this practice occurs on their watch.

The current crisis of corridor care is a symptom of severe bed capacity reductions over four or more decades, coupled with a major failure in social and community care, which prevents the remaining beds from being freed up.

I just looked up the difference between the mid 1980s and now -

Significantly more acute hospital beds relative to the population... Since 1988, the number of general and acute care beds in England has fallen by around 44%.

The UK now has one of the lowest bed counts per head of population among wealthy nations (e.g., about 2.4 beds per 1,000 people, compared to about 4 in most of Europe

We all know why the corridors are being used - we need to know how to roll this particular clock back!

Not many of us are being humble and thankful, more like, thanking someone pleasantly who is doing their best to help in very difficult circumstances; it's called 'good manners!' My lovely granddaughter WhatsApp t me this morning reassuring us that she was 'soldiering on. Hopefully someone may say thank you to her!

My Mum was stuck in a corridor in November 1999. She'd had a stroke and later died. Haven't moved on much have we.

If more people had bothered to have their flu jabs?

Of course we need better, everybody feels that.

Then you hear on the news as in lunchtime today that NATO wants us to spend 5% of our total resources on war/protection preparation....(that is actually higher than the Cold War period, where it was 4% - until we all get used to the idea that we have to pay more, there will always be this conflict on the resources available,

although there is clearly room for improvement in using the NHS resources we have.

Meanwhile I'm looking at my rainbow mug and being thankful we have what we have got.

When I started nursing in the seventies on nightingale wards when full we nursed patients down middle of ward so full hospitals even back then .

In August my son was put in a corridor on a bed. He was on a drip and very uncomfortable. There was no pillow on the bed and we asked for one and it was promised but never turned up.

It was very noisy and narrow and staff were walking past all the time. He eventually got moved on to a 6 bedded bay.

NotSpaghetti

The current crisis of corridor care is a symptom of severe bed capacity reductions over four or more decades, coupled with a major failure in social and community care, which prevents the remaining beds from being freed up.

I just looked up the difference between the mid 1980s and now -

Significantly more acute hospital beds relative to the population... Since 1988, the number of general and acute care beds in England has fallen by around 44%.

The UK now has one of the lowest bed counts per head of population among wealthy nations (e.g., about 2.4 beds per 1,000 people, compared to about 4 in most of Europe

We all know why the corridors are being used - we need to know how to roll this particular clock back!

Do you know why (to put it more accurately "What excuse was used?") for the reduction in hospital beds over recent years. Given that it's so illogical to say "A higher population means less hospital beds to be provided for them" - when it's obvious to all of us that it's a case of "A steadily increasing population means more beds are needed than we used to have". I certainly know someone who goes apopletic any time he remembers that Mark Drakeford (last leader of the Welsh Assembly/Senedd) would then go on to state that we have too many beds here in Wales!!! As far as I know - we've got an inadequate number of beds throughout the country (ie throughout Britain) and have read about them taking beds away/mothballing wards/etc. and thought "But that's crazy...".

As far as I know - we've got an inadequate number of beds throughout the country (ie throughout Britain) and have read about them taking beds away/mothballing wards/etc. and thought "But that's crazy...".
I remember spending some time in hospital in the early 2000s and Sister saying how desperately they needed more rooms for patients but the unused rooms further along the corridor were earmarked for Management. She had asked if their department could have them for patients as they were in desperate need but was told, very firmly, No.