Patient safety
worried or emotionally burdened by not being able to give quality care.RCN further reported that staff were leaving the profession because they could not give the quality of care that they had trained for. Overall, it was evident that the impact of using temporary care environments was having a significant impact on staff wellbeing.
Adaptions Trusts were making adaptations and adjustments to the environment, staffing and delivery of care where possible to mitigate patient safety risks when using temporary care environments. In hospitals where adaptations have been made, the investigation found that caring for people feels calmer and looks more organised than temporary care environments in hospitals where there is a reluctance to adapt spaces for fear of normalising this type of care. Examples of adaptations included:
l Some hospitals have policies and risk assessments for selecting patients suitable for care in a temporary environment, with exclusion criteria outlining which patients should not be placed in them (such as those who require heart monitoring, people at high risk of a fall, children and patients with mental health needs).
l Some hospitals had made physical adaptations to their temporary care environments by installing plug sockets, emergency call bells, patient call bells and communication systems to support patient safety.
l Some hospitals tried to ensure they had enhanced staff to patient ratios by bringing in bank and agency nursing staff, and having support from specialty doctors, allied health professionals, such as physiotherapy and occupational therapy, and mental health staff.
Action points The HSSIB report calls for: l The adoption of a nationally agreed definition of temporary care environments.
l Improved understanding of how and when temporary care environments are used in NHS hospitals.
l In the absence of an agreed definition and improved data collection of the use of temporary care environments, there is a limited understanding of the safety risks and impact on patients.
Saskia Fursland, Senior Safety Investigator at HSSIB, said: “Until there is a solution to the complex underlying issues related to patient flow, we must recognise that hospitals may have no choice but to use temporary care
environments. By working together with a shared understanding, healthcare leaders and NHS Trusts can better understand the use of temporary care environments and their impact on patient safety in a consistent way and systematically address the risks to patient safety. In contrast to the chaotic picture that’s often presented of ‘corridor care’, in the course of our investigation we saw first-hand how individual NHS Trusts are adapting to ensure that the patient safety risks associated with using temporary care environments are being mitigated.”
RCN Survey Following the publication of the HSSIB report, a number of NHS Trusts in England declared critical incidents over dangerously high patient demand, leaving hospitals without space in emergency departments or beds to admit patients, with one resorting to repurposing a dining room. Responding to the crisis, RCN published its own findings following a survey involving 436 NHS nursing staff across the UK. The College collected testimonies from the same nursing staff who contributed to the groundbreaking report: ‘On the Frontline of the UK’s Corridor Care Crisis’, published a year ago. Just some examples shared include how a nurse witnessed a patient left in a chair for four days, a patient dying after choking undetected in a corridor and nurses holding up sheets to try and protect the dignity of a patient while they underwent an intimate procedure. The RCN’s General Secretary and Chief Executive, Professor Nicola Ranger, said ministers mustn’t allow nursing staff to “lose hope” and that “decisive action can restore care standards and stop staff morale collapsing past the point of no return.” In the testimony, nursing staff consistently
raise serious concerns about the impact of corridor care on the elderly, including those with dementia, as well as those with mental ill health. A nurse in an NHS hospital in the North West
of England said: “It breaks my heart being in work and there being a patient, usually elderly, on the corridor and coming back two days later and them still being there,” while a nurse in London said elderly patients regularly spent 24 hrs in corridors on trolleys and as a result develop incontinence and pick up respiratory viruses which have led to “extreme critical incidents including death.” Nursing staff not only report having a lack
of access to vital lifesaving equipment such as oxygen and suction, but also say there are simply too few staff to care for the number of patients being placed in non-clinical areas. A nurse working in an NHS hospital in the
North West of England said Trust planning meant no more than six patients should be in the corridor at any one time but that now “it is becoming routine to care for up to 26 patients.” Access the nurse testimonies at: https://
tinyurl.com/4cpzddx3 View ‘On the frontline of the UK’s corridor care crisis’, at
https://tinyurl.com/5x2bureu CSJ
SCAN ME
To download the full report, scan the QR code:
https://www.hssib.org. uk/patient-safety-investigations/ patient-care-in-temporary-care- environments/investigation-report/
February 2026 I
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