Corridor care: navigating patient safety and physician wellbeing in pressured acute settings

Corridor care reflects failures in system flow, capacity and accountability and should not be an accepted feature of the acute medical take. Nevertheless, patients across the NHS are increasingly cared for in corridors and other non-clinical environments, exposing them to potentially avoidable harm, loss of dignity and compromised clinical decision making, while placing staff under significant professional and moral strain.

In this 1-hour webinar, the president elect of the Society for Acute Medicine will examine corridor care as a system-wide patient safety issue affecting the entire acute medical take. The session will explore its impact on patients, clinical teams and decision making, outline current standards and expectations, and emphasise the shared responsibility of organisations and systems to eliminate corridor care rather than manage it.

The webinar will include a short evidence-based presentation followed by a facilitated discussion and audience Q&A.
 
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Explore and define what we mean by the term 'corridor care' as a surrogate for temporary escalation spaces in our acute hospitals.
2. Explain why corridor care is unsafe, undignified and unacceptable, and describe its clinical, ethical and professional impacts on patients and staff across the acute take.
3. Interpret current standards, guidance and national expectations relating to corridor care and temporary care environments, and explain how system pressures and flow failures contribute to its persistence.
4. Articulate and escalate risk effectively, using shared language and professional standards to advocate for patients and support the elimination of corridor care at organisational and system level.
5. Identify opportunities for collective action and service improvement, recognising the roles of multidisciplinary teams, clinical leaders and healthcare organisations in ending corridor care rather than normalising it.