Hospital patients dying in corridors, says bombshell report on state of NHS

Patients are dying in hospital corridors and going undiscovered for hours, while others who suffer heart attacks cannot be given CPR because of overcrowding in walkways, a bombshell report on the state of the NHS has revealed.

- Denis Campbell

So many patients are being cared for in hospital corridors across the UK that in some cases pregnant women are having miscarriages outside wards while other patients are unable to call for help because they have no call bell and are subjected to "animal-like conditions", the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said.

It warned that patients are "routinely coming to harm" and in some cases dying because vital equipment is not available and staff are too busy to give everyone adequate care.

Dr Adrian Boyle, the leader of Britain's A&E doctors, said the nurses' testimonies on which the report is based were so horrendous that it "must be a watershed moment, a line in the sand" and prompt the government to redouble its efforts to get the NHS working properly again.

Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: "I am shocked, appalled and so saddened that this is the level of care we as clinicians are being forced to provide to our patients - people who turn to the NHS and its staff when they are most vulnerable and in need."

The RCN's 460-page report, based on "harrowing" descriptions given by 5,400 UK nurses of their experience of working in hospitals, sets out how:

• Patients have died on trolleys and chairs in the corridor and waiting room in settings where "all the fundamentals of care have broken down".

• One nurse had seen "cardiac arrests in the corridor with no crash bell, crash trolley, oxygen, defibrillator... straddling a patient doing CPR while everyone watches on".

• Patients are being given drugs, intravenous infusions and in one case a blood transfusion on a corridor which are cold, noisy and too cramped to allow the people to have loved ones with them.

• One nurse told a patient he was dying as patients were wheeled past. "How is it fair to tell someone they are dying in a corridor?" they added.