{"id":341382,"date":"2025-12-11T09:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T09:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341382\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T09:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T09:24:09","slug":"completely-unacceptable-levels-of-corridor-care-in-ni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341382\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Completely unacceptable&#8217; levels of corridor care in NI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marie-Louise ConnollyBBC News NI health correspondent <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765435928_258_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bcf8b790-d611-11f0-a170-530c17232108.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Getty Images A portable white hospital bed sits tight against a wall in a bright, empty corridor. Small spotlights shine a pale light on the clean, neutral colour palette of the ward.   \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The report is a snapshot of five days in March in emergency departments (EDs) across the UK<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">More people in Northern Ireland are treated in hospital corridors compared to elsewhere in the UK, according to a new report by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The report carried out by The Trainee Emergency Medicine Research Network (TERN) is a snapshot of five days in March in emergency departments (EDs) across the UK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Vice President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in Northern Ireland, Dr Michael Perry, described the results as &#8220;completely unacceptable&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Those in power in Northern Ireland must do better. This is horrific. Corridor care is undignified; it compromises confidentiality and causes harm. It must be eradicated,&#8221; Dr Perry said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765435928_258_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/b1297080-d60c-11f0-a170-530c17232108.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Dr Michael Perry, who wears thin rimmed rectangular glasses, has a short beard and neatly quiffed dark hair, looks sternly, almost gravely, at the camera. All that can be seen are his head, and shoulders, which are covered by a navy jacket. The background is blurred. \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Dr Michael Perry, vice president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, recently said HSCNI staff were &#8220;demoralised&#8221; and &#8220;angry&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">A total of 165 EDs across the UK were monitored, including Craigavon Area, The Ulster, Royal Victoria and Antrim Area hospitals in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The research study headline is one in five people across the UK are cared for in escalation or corridor areas, in NI that figure is one in three.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The study also found that between 10-25% of EDs have no available resuscitation cubicle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The biggest problem was found to be patient flow throughout the system &#8211; being able to discharge patients home when their hospital care is complete in order to admit others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The RCEM said the figures confirm that corridor care is &#8220;endemic&#8221; in the UK and that these figures reveal the scale of the problem which ED staff have been describing for years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">UK College President Dr Ian Higginson said tackling the problem required investment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;That doesn&#8217;t mean more money but instead how we choose to spend the money on keeping people out of hospital and what is spent on the number of hospital beds,&#8221; Dr Higginson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;We are calling on all the devolved nations to commit to eradicating corridor care&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Inhumane&#8217; <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Speaking on <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/m002n84x\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Good Morning Ulster<\/a>, Dr Perry called the situation &#8220;scandalous&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a nightmare situation for patients and for staff all year round,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He called it a &#8220;national problem,&#8221; but added that &#8220;the study demonstrates how far behind we are&#8221; in Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Dr Perry said the main issue for hospitals is the &#8220;lack of flow&#8221; and called it &#8220;inhumane for people to be treated that way&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;We have over 500 patients currently in our hospitals in Northern Ireland who have had their medical treatment completed, but can&#8217;t be discharged because of social care or social care needs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;That&#8217;s an enormous amount of functional beds that we can&#8217;t use in the system, because we cant get patients discharged out the backdoor of the hospital.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He said: &#8220;The government and the executive need to come together to tackle this.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marie-Louise ConnollyBBC News NI health correspondent Getty Images The report is a snapshot of five days in March&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-341382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}