{"id":125238,"date":"2025-09-09T13:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T13:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/125238\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T13:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T13:38:07","slug":"one-in-five-inpatients-left-to-wait-in-hospital-corridors-in-england-cqc-finds-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/125238\/","title":{"rendered":"One in five inpatients left to wait in hospital corridors in England, CQC finds | Hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"

One in five patients admitted to hospital in England<\/a> in November last year had to wait in a corridor, with 1% waiting in a storage cupboard, according to a national survey.<\/p>\n

The report by the Care Quality Commission<\/a> also found that nearly 10% of patients waited more than 24 hours to be admitted to hospital and 17.5% waited 12 to 24 hours. In all, more than half of all patients waited more than six hours to be admitted.<\/p>\n

While nearly half waited in a treatment bay, 18% had to wait in a corridor, 31% in a waiting room and 361 patients (1%) said they had to wait in a storage room or cupboard.<\/p>\n

The CQC\u2019s annual survey of more than 62,000 adults\u2019 experiences of staying in hospital found that more people waiting for planned care were reporting that their health worsened while waiting. About four in 10 (43%) said their health deteriorated while waiting to be admitted, with a quarter (25.5%) saying it got \u201ca bit worse\u201d and nearly a fifth (17.7%) saying their health got \u201cmuch worse\u201d, up from 24% and 175 in 2023 respectively.<\/p>\n

Dr Toli Onon, CQC\u2019s chief inspector of hospitals, said it was \u201cgreat to see\u201d improvements since the previous year in the availability of staff and numbers of patients getting help when they needed it.<\/p>\n

But \u201cworrying\u201d reports of lengthy waits and the proportion of patients whose health had deteriorated while waiting for elective care was a \u201creal concern\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients should receive safe and effective care in an environment that allows for their privacy and dignity to be protected. \u2018Corridor care\u2019 must not become normalised \u2013 however, these survey results demonstrate that in some cases the short-term use of temporary escalation spaces to relieve pressure on the ambulance sector is a regrettable reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CQC\u2019s survey also found:<\/p>\n

Only a fifth (20%) of those who had to change wards during the night were given a clear and understandable explanation for the reason.<\/p>\n

Fewer than half (47.5%) of respondents felt they \u201cdefinitely\u201d got enough support from health or social care services to help them manage their condition after leaving hospital, and 23.1% said they did not receive enough support.<\/p>\n

The proportion who said there were always enough nurses on duty improved from 55.7% in 2023 to 57.9% in 2024.<\/p>\n

Nearly two-thirds (64.5%) of patients in 2024 said they were \u201calways\u201d able to get a member of staff to help them when they needed attention, up from 63.1% in the 2023 survey.<\/p>\n

A Department for Health<\/a> and Social Care spokesperson said: \u201cAfter over a decade of neglect, we are starting to get the NHS back on its feet with much needed reform and \u00a326bn investment \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working hard to cut waiting lists \u2013 with 4.9 million extra appointments already delivered \u2013 mend the front door to the NHS<\/a> to improve GP access, and deliver a seismic shift in care from hospital to community through our 10-year health plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One in five patients admitted to hospital in England in November last year had to wait in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-125238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}