NHS patients face intimate examinations in corridors and nights sleeping in chairs, warns union

Patients are being squeezed onto wards, forced to have intimate examinations in front of each other and left dying in hospital corridors as nurses are forced to play “trolley tetris”, NHS staff have revealed.

Testimonies from nurses, given to the Royal College of Nursing and seen by The Independent, reveal they are regularly forced into “unsafe” practices, such as squeezing more patients into wards with insufficient space and staffing.

The warnings come as the RCN has urged the next government to act on the “national emergency” with a survey of thousands of nurses revealing patients are being left without access to oxygen and put in undignified situations.

RCN deputy chief nurse Lynn Woolsey said in May: “We have increasing evidence from members up and down the country of patients being cared for in undesignated bed spaces, vending machines being moved out of A&E to make space for patients, two patients being put in one bed space, with one patient being asked to face the wall while a rectal exam was carried out on the other patient... shocking, shocking information and situations.”

In the face of the worsening A&E and ambulance waiting times last year, The Independent revealed hospital staff in many areas were ordered to move patients from emergency departments on, regardless of space.

In one example, a nurse said her trust ordered workers to accept patients from A&E at midday every day, adding: “Doesn’t matter what capacity A&E is or the ward. It’s just what has to be done. We have no space, no tables, no curtains.”

Among other reports to the RCN, one nurse said: “Patients [are put on] on trolleys, chairs and on the floor in corridors and sharing bays. [There are] not enough staff to support patients in need. There was an old woman on a trolley shouting for help as she needed to pee, others crying in pain. Everyone busy with a far too high patient load.”

They added: “This is not a care I want to give, it is just horrible. Actually, it is not care at all! How is this possible in a country like the UK? I’d rather be back in Covid-19 lockdowns as this situation now is worse.”

Another nurse told the RCN: “At the start of my last shift there were patients who had been in the department [for] over 30 hours waiting for beds, and every cubicle was full, so there were patients on beds and trolleys in the corridors.

“We were short staffed, so there was no nurse assigned to the corridor patients. With every single ambulance that arrived, we struggled to find somewhere to offload the patients to, playing trolley Tetris to find a corridor space. 45 minutes into the shift I already felt harassed, having been bombarded with one problem after another, without enough time to finish a thought. In one word – disgusting.”

The RCN is holding its annual conference this week, with acting general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger declaring a “national emergency” in her opening speech.

​The RCN is calling for mandatory reporting of patients cared for in corridors to show the extent of hospital overcrowding. Patients are regularly treated on chairs in corridors for extended periods of time, sometimes a number of days.

A survey of almost 11,000 frontline nursing staff across the UK showed how widespread the practice has become, said the RCN.

When asked about their most recent shift, almost two in five respondents reported delivering care in an inappropriate area, such as a corridor.

​Almost seven in 10 said the care they delivered in public compromised patient privacy and dignity. ​

Prof Ranger described the situation as a “tragedy” for the nursing profession, with patients being treated in car parks and store cupboards.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive at NHS Providers, said: “These findings reflect the severe pressures facing the NHS, including high demand, lack of bed capacity and delayed hospital discharge.

“No trust leader wants to treat patients in corridors, store cupboards or other non-clinical areas as it compromises quality of care, patient privacy and dignity.”