Corridor care experience was 'a living hell'
A Liverpool woman has shared her experience as Age UK urge the government to take action
A Liverpool woman has described feeling 'terrified, frightened and fearful of dying' after spending 11 hours waiting for treatment in a hospital corridor.
It's as Age UK called corridor care a 'crisis in plain sight', with 'truly shocking' incidents of elderly people waiting days on end for care.
A first-hand account from a patient likened hospital corridor care to war films with "queues of stretchers and people suffering" in Age UK's new report.
It also details other "heartbreaking" incidents of poor care, including patients hearing or seeing others dying as they waited for their own care.
The report details information about a woman dying from a heart attack after being left to wait; a patient who was "lost" after being put on a disused corridor and a man left hooked up to an IV drip in a chair for 20 hours, who soiled himself because he was unable to get to the toilet.
People told the charity about "puddles of urine" on the floor as immobile patients are unable to go to the toilet and patients being forced to use bedpans in corridors.
It also details the case of an elderly man who cared for his wife in hospital and stayed awake for 36 hours straight because he was so concerned about how she would be treated.
Janet Brownlow, 67, had to go to A&E in November 2024 with suspected sepsis, after complications arising from getting a knee replacement.
She said:
"My partner phoned 999. We then waited four hours for an ambulance to arrive, I have to say the paramedics that treated me on that ambulance were amazing, took me to hospital and I then spent eight hours in the back of the ambulance with them. They can't leave you, they have to stay with you and at one point in the eight hours, there were 22 ambulances in the car park.
"Eventually they got me in and I was taken and placed in a corridor for six hours. So at this point, 18 hours from the initial phone call. They knew I had some kind of infection, but they couldn't treat me. You have to be seen and you can't get triaged until you leave that corridor.
"So it took 18 hours. As it turned out, it was a reaction to the metal that had been put into my knee. Thankfully it wasn't sepsis because had it had been sepsis, I doubt at my age I'd still be here.
"That wasn't my first encounter. A few years ago, I had diverticulitis. I collapsed at home in agony, I was vomiting and passing blood and I spent 11 hours in a corridor waiting to be seen. I was dehydrated, hallucinating and you go through the double doors and everything changes and I was put on a drip, I was in hospital for a week.
"It's terrifying, it's so frightening"
"The whole system was horrendous. You're now given a bed number in the corridor so you are treated like you're in a ward, but you're not getting any medical attention. While you're in the corridor, nobody is on drips that I saw, any painkillers, because they can't issue anything until you go through those double doors and see triage and see a doctor.
"It's terrifying, it's so frightening because nobody is helping you, nobody is talking to you. My fear was sepsis and I thought I was going to die, I truly and honestly thought I was going to die, I didn't believe for one minute that I was coming out of that hospital alive. I was distraught, I cried and cried and cried.
"When you go through, it's all different, they care for you and the staff themselves once you get onto a ward are lovely, but just that initial fear and it's not an hour, it's not two hours or three hours, it's pain, it's confusion, you're hungry, you're thirsty, and you're dehydrated, it makes you feel 100 times worse.
"I was in so much pain and I was so frightened"
"I got to a point in there that I just wanted to die. I just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. I was in so much pain and I was so frightened. The fear when you are faced with what you think is going to be the end, all I was wanted to do was come home to my animals to die.
"Th ordeal of the infection and the hospital, I have to say, was worse than the knee replacement because you feel like you're just going to die in there.
"I truly believe that there's people dying on those trolleys and no-one knows for hours. It must be happening, it's impossible for it not to happen.
"I feel for the staff, I really felt for the ambulance staff. The ambulance staff were wonderful, absolutely wonderful."
Age UK has raised concerns that poor quality care "is now almost expected" in some A&E departments and warned the situation could "get worse" as the NHS heads into winter.
It said that many patients are unwilling to go to A&E, even if they are in a life-threatening situation because of their past experiences.
The charity has called on the Government to "urgently" tackle corridor care as it warned that older people are disproportionately affected.
Ministers should produce a plan to end long A&E waits and corridor care, with specific deadlines and milestones, it said.
According to the latest figures for England, some 75% of patients were seen within four hours in A&Es in September.
The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments in England from a decision to admit to actually being admitted - so-called "corridor care" - stood at 44,765 in September, up from 35,909 in August.
Ms Brownlow added:
"Something drastic needs to be done and more assessment. I don't think it's about doctors, operations, I think it's about the general assessment when you first get there. There should be somebody looking immediately at you and saying you need immediate attention.
"I didn't see a doctor for 18 hours. From the point of call from that telephone call that my partner made to seeing a physical doctor was 18 hours and I just don't think that's acceptable."
Professor Nicola Ranger, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said:
"Corridor care is a moral stain on our health service, and this report is yet more evidence of its devastating consequences. No elderly or vulnerable person should be forced to endure these conditions. It is unsafe, undignified, and unacceptable.
"Overstretched and understaffed nursing teams work hard every day to deliver the best care, but they face an impossible task. You simply cannot provide good quality care when patients are lining corridors or are pushed into any other available space, no matter how inappropriate.
"The reality is nursing staff and patients are being set up to fail by a system that simply isn't working."
The Department of Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.