British hospitals are so saturated that patients are dying while waiting in corridors or having to be treated in toilets or even emergency car parks, the main nurses’ union warned in a report on Thursday.
“Patients are being deprived of their dignity and their lives are being put at risk,” said Nicola Ranger, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), adding that the testimonies collected should serve as a “wake-up call”.
“Corridor” or “chair” care is becoming normalized in the United Kingdom, he warned, questioning the capacity of the hospital system to cope with winter.
The report is based on testimonies collected from 5,000 nurses. Some report patients having cardiac arrests or women having miscarriages in these corridors.
Others must be cared for in toilets or bathrooms, locker rooms or in parking lots, putting their lives at risk due to lack of access to heart monitors, oxygen, or space to be re-treated. .
Health Minister Wes Streeting told Parliament on Wednesday that this situation was intolerable, blaming “14 years of failure” of the public health system, the NHS, under previous Conservative governments.
“I cannot and will not promise that there will be no more patients being treated in the corridors next year, because it will take time to repair the damage,” he also admitted.
“Patients have died on hospital beds and chairs in corridors and waiting rooms. All the fundamental principles of care have collapsed – we offer nothing better than in a developing country,” a nurse testified to the RCN.
Last week was the busiest of the winter for the British health system, notably due to the circulation of flu and a cold snap, the director of emergency clinical care for the NHS said on Thursday, Julian Redhead.
The bed occupancy rate was 96% in England and around twenty hospitals reported “serious incidents” in emergency rooms.
Duncan Burton, head of nursing at NHS England, described this winter as “one of the most difficult” that the public health system has experienced.
