NURSES have shared harrowing accounts of a “broken system” of corridor care that “tortures” patients, with people left in chairs for days and one patient choking to death, unnoticed.

Publishing new findings on the practice today, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned that collapsing NHS care standards are pushing staff morale “past the point of no return.” 

The report comes a year after a previous damning investigation by the union into corridor care.

RCN contacted thousands of nurses who contributed to last year’s report to assess whether corridor care was still being used and its impact.

Responses from 436 nurses showed the practice remains widespread.

Nurses described having to hold up white sheets to protect patient dignity while performing intimate procedures. 

At one hospital, an elderly patient was forced to eat in a corridor beside someone who was vomiting.

A nurse working in the NHS in south-west England said patients felt “deeply embarrassed, objectified, judged, uncared for” and like “a burden on a broken system.”

They are often “wishing they had never bothered to come in and would rather have taken the risk of dying at home than go through the torture,” the nurse said. 

“Because that’s what we subject them to, a type of torture.”

Staff told the RCN that they are treating patients in freezing corridors, dining rooms, staff kitchens, offices, seminar rooms, family rooms, deceased viewing rooms and discharge lounges.

A nurse in southern England said they suffered nightmares after a patient died in a lounge that had been turned into a ward.

In the east of England, one nurse said: “It’s freezing cold in the corridor. No oxygen, no monitors, nothing to facilitate nursing care or anything.”

In London, a nurse said elderly patients regularly spent 24 hours on trolleys, developing incontinence and respiratory infections, which had led to “extreme critical incidents including death.”

A nurse in Yorkshire recalled a terminally ill patient spending a week in a “temporary escalation space” before being moved to a side room where they died. 

“I won’t ever forget that,” they said.

Another nurse in Scotland said: “It’s very stressful and distressing at times. There’s a sense of frustration and hopelessness.” 

A nurse in the south-east added: “The system is broken and so are we.”

An NHS mental health nurse in Wales described corridor care as a “regular occurrence,” warning it increases the risk of self-harm and suicide. 

RCN general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger called on the government to take control by investing in more beds, nurses, community services and social care.

“The fact remains that there can be no safe, dignified care delivered in a corridor, store room or dining room, but that has become the norm,” she said. 

She warned the practice was becoming “a permanent fixture.”

RCN Wales’s Nicky Hughes said corridor care was “a symptom of a system that has been allowed to drift into crisis,” calling for urgent investment to end the practice.

Campaign group Every Doctor has launched a letter campaign, signed by more than 3,000 people in the first day, urging Health Secretary Wes Streeting to act with a “clear and urgent” plan.

The letter reads: “Corridor care represents a fundamental failure to provide patients with the dignity, safety and quality of care they deserve. 

“It places impossible burdens on dedicated NHS staff who are forced to work in conditions that compromise their ability to deliver proper care, and leave them under immense mental strain. 

“I urge you [Mr Streeting] to take immediate, decisive action to end corridor care not over the course of a parliament, but right now. 

“We need a clear plan.”

The letter can be signed and sent directly to Mr Streeting on everydoctor.org.uk.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the situation was “unacceptable and undignified,” while the NHS Confederation said corridor care reflected wider failures in patient flow across the system.