Corridor care ‘best worse option’ – report

SOME NHS hospitals are adapting corridors and other spaces to provide care by installing plug sockets and emergency call bells in a bid to minimise patient safety risks, an investigation has found.

- STORM NEWTON Press Association

SOME NHS hospitals are adapting corridors and other spaces to provide care by installing plug sockets and emergency call bells in a bid to minimise patient safety risks, an investigation has found.

Senior staff told the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) that they made the investment as they “could not avoid using these spaces”.

A new report by the health safety watchdog said hospitals “may have no choice” but to use these spaces and called for health leaders and trusts to work together to “systematically address” risks.

It called for a “nationally agreed definition” of so-called temporary care environments, such as corridors, offices and storerooms, along with a better understanding of how and when they are used in the NHS.