11 March 2026
The President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has urged politicians and healthcare leaders to ‘fix the problem’ of corridor care in A&Es, labelling the practice a ‘national issue, a national crisis’ and a ‘national scandal’.
Dr Ian Higginson made the remarks as he appeared in parliament today (11 March 2026), while giving evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee on the state of corridor care in England.
He was joined by RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, Professor Nicola Ranger, and Interim Chief Executive at Health Services Safety Investigation Board (HSSIB), Dr Rosie Bennyworth.
The one-off session on the issue was opened by the chair of the cross-party group, Layla Moran MP, who stated there is a “lot of public interest in the sector, a lot of interest from patients and staff on this very important and pressing matter.”
Dr Higginson explained why corridor care is occurring, the impact overcrowding is having on patients and staff, as well as highlighting where the political focus needs to be to address the issue.
“Corridor care is a visible symptom of overcrowding which is a national issue, a national crisis and I believe a national scandal. And it’s caused predominantly by long waits for admission to hospital.
“There is absolutely no safe or acceptable way to provide care for patients in corridors or other non-designated spaces whatever we try and do. It just cannot be done.
“But also, it is not inevitable – this can be fixed. We’ve been talking about this issue -probably loudly – since 2015 but certainly we wrote out first guidance on this subject back in 2014/15. It’s been progressively getting worse. We have not seen any improvement… over all that time.
“From our point of view, we cannot understand why it hasn’t got the focus it deserves because it’s actively killing patients.”
RCEM analysis, published last year, revealed that there were an estimated 16,600 deaths associated with long A&E waits before admission in England in 2024.
That’s an increase of 20% (2,275) compared to 2023.
Mentioning this figure, Dr Higginson told MPs, “That’s a lot of patients. If this was any other sector, there would be howling rage. If it was an airline, we would be grounding aircraft.”
Paulette Hamilton MP raised a question about how staff are feeling and how corridor care is affecting people’s mental health.
Responding, Dr Higginson raised the results from RCEM’s survey of Clinical Leads in Emergency Departments across England, which was conducted between 2-3 March.
In total, representatives from 80 EDs responded, with 88% saying that overcrowding was a daily occurrence, and 96% saying it occurred at least several days a week.
Nearly all respondents (96%) said that working in such a way was unsustainable for staff in the long term in their department.
“Often, our staff feel like they are ‘left to fend for themselves’ with poor engagement throughout the system and they often feel unheard and unsupported because it has been going on for so long with little apparent mitigation,” Dr Higginson said.
“There is a human cost, but also staff reduce their hours, retire early or leave. I was around at dinner with a friend of mine the other day. A very experienced consultant. We started talking about retirement and he said… ‘I don’t think I can go back and do another shift because I am embarrassed at the care we are delivering.'”
Asked what can be done to help staff, Dr Higginson simply said, “fix the problem.”
“For our members, they simply want to offer brilliant emergency care to our patients. These are amazing clinicians, doctors, practitioners, nurses – they can do an amazing job. They can’t do it in overcrowded departments, and we certainly can’t do it in a corridor. So, fix the problem. Fix the problem. Fix the problem.
“There’s no one single solution and undoubtably, discharge from hospital into social care is one part of the problem, but also the way hospitals work, the efficiency with which they work, the number of beds available are both other factors in that. It’s a really complicated beast. There is no “uni-solution” but there is a solution if you take the problem in the round.”
Following the session, the committee also heard evidence from healthcare leaders within the NHS England, as well as the Minister of State for Health (Secondary Care), Karin Smyth MP.