Corridor care causes great harm, and it could be solved if the government chose to do so. Our NHS is underfunded and is being served up to private profit on a plate. Our NHS has too few doctors, too few beds, too little equipment, and not enough physical space.

The NHS model of healthcare, free at the point of need, for everyone and provided as a national public service, is the most cost-effective and safest model. Our underfunded services are inadequate, and this costs thousands of lives. No amount of superhuman effort from staff can change this. The answer is investment in the publicly owned and delivered NHS.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine commented in March, 2025, England’s data also showed: 

28 ambulances were diverted away from major EDs in the week ending March 1st. This typically happens when departments are overwhelmed and there are concerns about the time it would take to hand off a patient 

There were 1,058 fewer beds available in type-1 NHS trusts than in the same week last year  

Delayed discharges fell on the previous week, but only by 42, to a daily average of 13,778 “

Since the Cheshire and Merseyside ICB was established in 2022, we have submitted questions to the Cheshire and Merseyside NHS Integrated Care Board meetings regarding the ongoing winter crisis and corridor care. When we talk about the Winter Crises, we mean:

Long waits in A&E,

Treatment being delivered in corridors without privacy, dignity and full equipment,

Long waits on trolleys to be admitted once a decision has been made to admit a patient,

“Boarding”, where patients are admitted to an inappropriate ward or to an already fully occupied ward

“The Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates that there were more than 16,600 deaths associated with long A&E waits before admission in England last year.(2024)”

All this is happening while many of our local hospitals have had a freeze on vacancies for more than a year, unfilled shifts, overworked staff and reduced staff headcounts. It is also happening while the ICB proposes moving Liverpool Women’s Hospital into floor 9 of the chronically overcrowded Liverpool Royal Hospital (See page 16 of the ICB’s January papers).

These are our questions and their answers from the March ICB2023. The questions were written after reading the ICB board papers.

Question 1

Re page 16:

This is the third year of winter crisis corridor care reported by the ICB in Cheshire and Merseyside. Such “care” is hated by patients, their families, and the staff caring for them. It is known to increase mortality and to lack dignity, however kind, caring and competent staff might be.

From the ICB papers for March 2023, “The Committee reviewed the position on winter pressures and noted significant concern regarding acute bed occupancy, which had reached 96%, exceeding the recommended threshold.”

Question 2

When will it return to the safe level of 85%?

From the ICB papers for March 2023, “The Committee reviewed detailed information on corridor care and noted that the number of instances had reduced over the Christmas period despite an overall increase in A&E attendance“

Answer from the ICB

“This is reflective of a wider national situation. Acute Trusts in England have not routinely operated at 85% occupancy for many years, and currently for England occupancy is typically in the region of 95%. Locally we have determined that if trusts were able to operate at around 92% occupancy this would facilitate improved flow and patient experience, and this is the level we aim to achieve in our winter plans, especially in the run up to Christmas in order to mitigate against the impact of the increased demand we typically see in January.“

Comment: This means our hospitals are being operated at an unsafe occupancy level. We need more beds and more staff.

Q3. Was this because the hospitals had cleared beds before Christmas due to fewer elective surgeries and fewer planned treatments other than emergencies?

Answer: In part yes, there are typically fewer elective procedures over the Christmas period. However, a broad range of actions were taken within our winter plans, all of which aimed to contribute to a safer winter. 

Comment: So the level of care in other services is reduced because of the underfunding and understaffing of the “winter crises”

Q3. Did these figures for bed occupancy include those patients who were in the corridor or other unusual settings? Or were these patients not counted?

Answer “No however corridor care is captured in other data reporting“

Comment So the overall figure for hospital occupancy was even higher.

Q4. What percentage of patients treated in Corridors were 70 years old and more?

Answer. “The ICB does not hold this information.”

Comment. Please see this report from Help the Aged, showing the horrid experiences of older people in corridor care and waits for a issue. This backs up the experience of patients reported to our campaigns. Again, this is unacceptable.

Q5. How many children were there?

Answer: The ICB does not hold this information.

Q6. Given this high occupancy, were extra cleaners employed? Does the ICB require higher hygiene measures? No answer

Q7. How many hospital-acquired infections were there amongst this cohort of patients? No answer

Q8. How many falls were there in this group of patients? No answer

There were no direct answers from the ICB to these questions,tions but these comments were included in the response from the ICB

“Whilst corridor care should never be seen as acceptable or normalised, as a C&M system, extensive work has been undertaken to develop quality standards called the “Red lines Toolkit,  (that have since been nationally adopted) to ensure we maintain safety and give the best experience as possible when patients are nursed in those environments. Assurances on these quality standards are sought via the NHS standard contract and are reported via QPC on a quarterly basis. All Trusts are embedding and developing these standards, with Healthwatch also using the toolkit as a prompt for their visits. HCAI and falls rates specific to these areas are difficult to monitor, however clinical teams are continuously addressing the recognised IPC risks through the use of a range of IPC measures across the emergency departments”

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the professional body for the doctors working in emergency medicine, wrote on March 5th 2026

“The crisis in English Emergency Departments is fixable, if government and health service leaders are willing to act on bed capacity in our hospitals. That’s the key takeaway from the latest Urgent and Emergency Care’ situation report’ from NHS England, published today, covering the week ending March 1st.  

The figures showed why Emergency Departments (EDs) continue to be full to bursting, with virtually no capacity in wards to admit patients. In that week, the average bed occupancy was at 94.2% – higher than the previous week, and around the same as the same week last winter. At such high occupancy, wards essentially have no beds left, as there are always some which are closed due to infectious diseases, or being turned over.  

Driving this, the figures showed, was a daily average across England of 13,778 patients who occupied beds despite being medically fit to leave – known as delayed discharges. Meanwhile, sustained pressure remains from seasonal illnesses like Norovirus and Flu. Patients with these diseases occupied an average of more than 1,500 beds per day. ‘

A ‘safe’ bed occupancy level is thought to be 85%, and a total of 10,855 additional available beds would be needed to get there.  

This lack of beds has a severe knock-on effect in A&E, where the sickest patients are waiting to be admitted.