FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
Beyond corridor care: a safer future
The use of temporary care environments presents a system-wide challenge for NHS Trusts. Here, Peter Harris, managing director of Micad by SINGU, outlines the advantages of using a connected estates and facilities platform when it comes to making decisions about space, safety, and patient care.
The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) investigation report, Patient care in temporary care environments, published on 8 January 2026, confirms that so-called corridor care and the use of temporary escalation spaces are no longer confined to winter pressures but have become a year-round reality for some NHS Trusts. The investigation examines patient safety risks associated with care delivered in environments not originally designed, staffed, or equipped for patient care, including corridors, waiting rooms, and chairs on wards. The report recognises that
temporary care environments are being used regularly due to sustained pressure on patient flow, where demand exceeds capacity. Managing patient safety in these circumstances is a system-wide challenge involving primary care, ambulance services, hospitals, community services, and social care. Their use represents a difficult compromise in patient experience – particularly privacy and dignity – in the interests of sharing risk and maintaining safety under extreme operational pressure. In response, some hospitals are adapting corridors and
other non-clinical spaces by installing plug sockets and emergency call bells in an attempt to reduce immediate safety risks. While frontline staff continue to work tirelessly to provide safe and dignified care in extremely challenging conditions, corridor care exposes deeper, systemic issues across the NHS estate. Non-clinical spaces are being repurposed without full visibility of suitability, risk, or compliance, and patients report distress and trauma following prolonged treatment in corridors and walkways.
The human reality behind corridor care This situation has become harrowing in its normality – patients queuing in crowded corridors, partitions used as makeshift privacy, and care delivered in spaces never designed for clinical use. Corridor care is not a choice; it is the consequence of sustained operational pressure
combined with limited ability to understand, optimise, and safely repurpose space across the estate. While reports and investigations describe the
system-wide pressures behind corridor care, individual experiences help illustrate the human reality of care delivered in spaces never designed for clinical use.
Jon Marsh, head of sales, Micad by SINGU, reflects: “It’s important to recognise the human reality behind the
Some hospitals are adapting corridors by installing plug sockets and emergency call bells.
Corridor care exposes the limits of decision- making when estates, facilities, and compliance data sit in silos.
March 2026 Health Estate Journal 43
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