Corridor care climbs 23% in six months as patients pay the price for Government inaction

EMBARGO: Immediate Release

Responding to new NHS England figures showing corridor care has worsened in the six months since it was first recorded, with 110,299 instances in October compared to 89,914 in May, Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Helen Morgan MP said:

“Six months of data, and the picture is only getting bleaker. Behind every one of the 581,219 cases over the past six months is a patient left on a trolley in a corridor without dignity or privacy, in frankly dangerous conditions.

“We are hearing troubling reports of trusts reclassifying spaces to keep the numbers down. Hospitals are under pressure to hit targets rather than put patients first. Patients on chairs in waiting rooms or in converted cupboards deserve to be counted. The true scale of this crisis is likely far worse than these figures show.

“The Government is failing to end the corridor care scandal. They must change course or patients will never forgive them. We urge the Prime Minister to steal our Liberal Democrat plan to end corridor care within a year, guaranteed in law, by investing in freeing up 6,000 hospital beds through more step-down care and care at home.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

• NHS England data on corridor care can be found here.
• The Liberal Democrat £1.5bn plan to end corridor care and 12-hour A&E waits within a year can be found here.
• Instances of corridor care in Emergency Departments rose from 69,504 in May to 84,250 in October. Instances of corridor care on wards increased from 20,410 to 26,049 over the same period.
• The RCEM survey (9 Nov 2026) found around one in five A&E patients across the UK were receiving corridor care at a single point in time in early November, and RCEM has warned the NHS England definition is too narrow: link
• The RCEM winter survey (20 Oct 2026) found 97% of A&E clinical leads in England said their department was not well prepared for winter: link