Karin Smyth

“The hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) and I are deep in the Health Bill Committee, and I have not seen them all day, so it is nice to have the opportunity to get back into the swing of our discussions. I am really grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for securing this important debate. Her commitment, and her pride in St George’s hospital and all the staff who work there, is always so clear to see. She did a great job for them and the rest of the country again today. She has given us an opportunity to discuss something that matters so much to patients, their families, NHS staff, Members from across the House, and the staff who work here. I recognise the important contribution of frontline clinicians, professional bodies and organisations such as the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the Corridor Care Coalition. Their experience and expertise have helped shape our work to establish a consistent national definition of “corridor care” and strengthen national guidance. We share the same objective: to ensure that every patient receives safe, dignified care in an appropriate clinical setting. We will continue to work with these experts across NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. Let me be absolutely clear: corridor care is not an acceptable standard of care, and it must not become normalised or, as the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) said, a habit. Wherever possible, patients should be assessed and treated in an appropriate clinical environment with dignity, privacy and the highest possible standards of care. Equally, NHS staff deserve to work in an environment that allows them to provide the compassionate care that they are trained to deliver. That is why tackling corridor care is a priority for this Government. If we are to solve this problem, we have to be honest about why it occurs, and we have heard some of the reasons today. Corridor care is one of the clearest symptoms of pressure across the entire urgent and emergency care pathway—it is not simply an emergency department issue. As we heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Rushcliffe (James Naish) and for Worthing West (Dr Cooper), it also responds differently in different places, such as rural cities or coastal areas. Historically, care in non-designated clinical areas was an exceptional escalation measure during periods of peak demand, but over time sustained increases in demand alongside capacity constraints across hospitals, community services and social care mean that what was once exceptional has become more routine in some places, and that is not acceptable. The hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham might not remember exactly how and when that happened, but I know that when I worked in urgent and emergency care in Bristol, under the previous Labour Government, we eradicated such pressures in A&E, and they somehow crept back—not by magic, but by neglect—under the Conservatives’ stewardship. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) about her mother’s experience, and I do hope people are witnessing that. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) talked about her father’s experience. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) had a terrible experience of her own. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph)—again, he is on the Public Bill Committee and doing great work—went to observe his emergency department, as I know many hon. Members do. So we have direct experience of this in the House and have seen it for ourselves, and I have of course visited my local systems in Bristol. Pressure in one part of the system affects other parts, and when patients who are medically fit cannot be discharged because appropriate support is unavailable, beds remain occupied, reducing hospitals’ ability to admit new patients from emergency departments, and the result is overcrowding, delayed patient flow and an increased risk of patients being cared for in temporary environments. We heard about that in detail from my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington South (Sarah Hall), for Stroud (Dr Opher) and for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), and that is why we are tackling it. The first step was bringing in consistency and transparency about how corridor care is measured. For too long there has been no single national definition, making it really difficult to understand where the pressures were greatest or to compare performance across the NHS. We cannot improve what we do not measure, as was noted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan). NHS England introduced a clear national definition of corridor care and began daily reporting in March 2026, and since June that data has been published, providing greater transparency and enabling targeted support for those organisations experiencing the greatest pressure. Let me make it clear to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Shropshire, that part of getting the definition and the data right did mean that did not come out immediately. It is difficult to get this right, and we continue to work on doing so. I also make it really clear that, in overseeing this, I am not hiding the experience of things such as ambulance waits. We are absolutely monitoring those things as part of my overseeing of the wider system. Alongside improved reporting, NHS England has strengthened the national guidance for trusts where temporary care environments cannot immediately be avoided. The guidance is clear that patients must continue to receive the same clinical standards of care wherever they are treated. They must be prioritised according to clinical urgency, supported by senior clinical oversight, named nursing responsibility and ongoing monitoring, with clear escalation arrangements, where required. I know that Members are rightly concerned by patient safety, and of course no patient should receive a lower standard of care because they are being treated in a temporary clinical environment, but the safest care is in the right clinical setting, and that is what we are aiming to do. We have also ensured that, following the spending review, the Government allocated up to £1.9 billion of capital funding over the next four years to support improvements in urgent and emergency care to help restore the constitutional standards talked about by the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham. The Conservatives did not hit any constitutional standards for over 10 years, and we are determined to right that wrong. Along with that investment, NHS England has published its model emergency department guidance, supporting faster clinical decision making, improved streaming of patients and stronger whole-system responsibility for performance. While there is much more to do, these reforms are already contributing to improvements, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, including the shortest waiting times for four years and the fastest ambulance response times for about five years, despite continued and increasing high demand. Targeted support is where we need to do the most work, and early national data shows that much corridor care is concentrated in some key places. The specialist “Getting it right first time” teams are therefore working directly with those trusts to help improve patient flows, strengthen the discharge process, make better use of data and share learning from organisations that have already made progress. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley), who highlighted the improvements at West Suffolk hospital, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for the great work happening at Blackburn and the work he is doing with other east Lancs MPs. My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Matt Turmaine) talked about the improvements happening there. We heard about North Herefordshire and I am going to hold them to the autumn deadline raised by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns). There is nothing like putting it on the record for them, is there? Great work. As colleagues have said, we want to take the best to the rest and some people are doing amazing work in difficult circumstances. Ultimately, as Members have said, eliminating corridor care means improving flow across the whole system. That requires: faster discharge; stronger community and neighbourhood services, as highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh); improved social care; and more people receiving care closer to home, so that hospitals can focus on those who need in-patient care. That ambition sits at the heart of our urgent and emergency care plan and our 10-year health plan, which of course includes more prevention, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West. The shift from hospital to community care will improve patient experience, reduce avoidable hospital attendance and create the capacity needed to restore urgent emergency care standards. This is about lasting reform, not a temporary response to seasonal pressures, whether they be the current heat or winter. Before I conclude, I want to acknowledge the extraordinary professionalism of NHS staff: doctors, nurses, paramedics, health care assistants, porters, pharmacists and so many other people who continue to provide outstanding care under immense pressure. No member of staff comes to work expecting to treat patients in corridors, and many have spoken openly, rightly, about the moral distress it causes. They deserve not only our gratitude, but practical action to improve the conditions under which they work. Part of what we are doing—introducing the national definition, being transparent about the data, strengthening patient safety guidance, investing additional urgent care capacity, providing targeted support to the most challenged trusts and addressing the wider pressures that drive corridor care—is the start of doing just that. Every patient deserves care delivered with dignity, compassion and respect. Every member of staff deserves a system that enables them to provide that care safely. Corridor care is not inevitable. It is the consequence of pressures that have built up across the health and care system, and it is a challenge that this Government are determined to overcome. By improving patient flow, increasing capacity, supporting frontline services and delivering long-term reform, we will restore urgent emergency care standards and end the routine use of corridor care before the end of this Parliament. That is our commitment to patients, NHS staff and this House.”