Patient safety
HSSIB publishes report on ‘corridor care’
In a report published by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB), healthcare leaders and NHS Trusts are urged to better understand and manage the risks temporary care environments may present to patient safety.
Temporary Care Environments, commonly referred to as ‘corridor care,’ are being used across NHS Trusts and there are widespread concerns about normalising their use and the impact on patients and staff. These are spaces that were not originally designed, staffed or equipped for patient care (such as waiting rooms, corridors, chairs on wards, ambulances outside emergency departments and other hospital areas). They are used when demand exceeds capacity, in an attempt to balance risks across the patient care pathway. However, these decisions often compromise the standard and quality of care delivered impacting on patient’s experiences, including the provision of dignity and respect.
In past years, this demand has usually
peaked during the colder months when the NHS experiences ‘winter pressures’. However, an HSSIB investigation visited 13 hospitals, and had insights from 4 other hospitals, over the period of August – December 2025. They were all experiencing issues with patient flow – the movement of patients into, through and out of hospital to the right place of care – showing there is no longer significant seasonal variation. HSSIB has reported on patient flow issues previously. However, there has been limited action in response to previous recommendations to address patient flow and reduce the use of temporary care environments. The patient safety issues faced in temporary
care environments include: l Difficulties in monitoring patients and recognising deterioration
l Insufficient staff for satisfactory staff to patient ratios
l Increased infection risk l A lack of piped oxygen and suction l Compromised response to medical and fire emergencies.
Findings The HSSIB published the following key findings: l All staff the investigation engaged with were motivated to make things as good as they
could for patients. There was a strong desire not to have to use corridor care (one form of temporary care environment).
l There was inconsistent data and information gathering which meant the impact of temporary care environments on patient safety may be poorly understood.
l There were limited reported patient safety incidents where the temporary care environment itself was recorded as a factor.
l National and local data on the time patients are in a temporary care environments is variable and inconsistent.
l There is variation in the language used to describe temporary care environments at a provider level. This can cause inconsistency in how national policy is applied, this impacts the findings above.
l There were governance processes associated with the use of temporary care environments. These included evidence of risk assessments to identify areas that can be used as temporary care environments, and to identify patients who may be more suitable for care in these spaces.
l Temporary care environments were located across hospital estates, in emergency departments and in ward areas. They included beds and trolleys in corridors, upright and reclined seating areas, extra spaces being made on wards or in cubicles, and other converted spaces, for example side storage rooms, office spaces and family rooms.
The HSSIB report highlighted that there are patient safety risks that are more challenging to manage when using temporary care environments including medical emergency situations, fire safety and infection prevention and control. Furthermore, there were concerns that normalising the use of temporary care environments can present a barrier to Trusts putting all the possible patient safety mitigations in place when using temporary care environments. The HSSIB was told that within hospitals,
waits for diagnostics and clinical investigations, the availability of inpatient beds, or waits for opinions from specialist teams can result in delays that impact on patient flow. The
February 2026 I
www.clinicalservicesjournal.com 37
Alex Yeung -
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