Hospital patients are being “set up to suffer” this winter, with “distressing” scenes of vulnerable and elderly people left waiting in corridors likely to be repeated, nurses have warned.
The NHS is braced for a typically difficult winter – with a bad flu season and looming resident doctors strike not helping.
And having set out earlier this year how too many patients are being treated in “undignified” circumstances, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) says there has been “insufficient urgency” to grip the problem.
RCN chief Professor Nicola Ranger said: “Nursing staff and patients alike endured a horrendous winter last year, with corridor care rife across every service.
“Worryingly, after no respite in the summer, the signs point to the coming colder months being devastating and more dangerous for patients.”
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A new briefing document from the RCN says many patients are facing 12-hour waits in A&E, and some leave without even being treated.
Bed capacity has “remained unchanged” since before the COVID pandemic, it says, while occupancy levels are at “thresholds widely regarded as unsafe”.
Official figures show the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E from a decision to admit to actually being admitted stood at 54,314 in October.
That’s up from 44,765 in September.
‘Deeply concerned about what lies ahead’
One senior nurse from an emergency department in London told the RCN it was seeing record numbers of patients, “many arriving sicker” and having to be treated in corridors.
Another from an A&E in the South West descried the situation as “heart-wrenching”.
And a chief nurse in the south of England told the union: “All of this is happening just as the flu peak is expected, with vaccine uptake lower than hoped.”
“Starting winter from this position has left many of us deeply concerned about what lies ahead for both staff and patients,” they added.
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A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said it was “unacceptable and undignified” for any patient to receive care in a hospital corridor.
The government is investing £450m to expand same-day and urgent care services, upgrading ambulances, delivering new mental health crisis centres, and giving NHS leaders more power to deliver local solutions, and ramping up vaccinations, they added.
But an NHS England spokesperson said work to improve the situation would be made “much more challenging” by resident doctors going on strike later this month.
They are planning to stage strike action in the run-up to Christmas, from 17 to 22 December.
