Ending corridor care in hospitals for children a priority

The health secretary has asked the National Health Service to draw up urgent plans to speed up ending hospital corridor care, placing a specific priority on children. Yvette Cooper told the BBC that there would be new standards for caring for children in accident and emergency departments across England, with official figures set to be collected on corridor care by age for the very first time. She was speaking during a broadcast where the programme highlighted the tragic case of two-year-old Finlay Roberts, who sadly died in a hospital corridor in 2024.

In addition to these new standards, the health secretary announced a £140m funding injection to improve urgent care infrastructure in England ahead of what she described as a more difficult winter than usual. While the government has previously pledged to eradicate corridor care for all patients by the end of the current parliament, Cooper emphasized that eliminating the practice for children must be treated as an immediate priority. Corridor care generally refers to a situation where patients are forced to receive medical treatment, assessment, or wait in corridors, waiting rooms, or other non-standard hospital areas due to a severe lack of appropriate bed space and clinical capacity.

During the same media appearance, the health secretary was questioned about whether the government would successfully meet a key manifesto pledge ensuring that 92 percent of patients begin treatment within 18 weeks of booking a hospital appointment by 2029. Cooper maintained that the objective remains an official manifesto commitment and that the health service will continue striving toward it, despite the target having consistently been missed for more than a decade. The NHS is currently grappling with extensive backlogs and persistent challenges, which have been exacerbated by record admissions in emergency departments following intense summer heatwaves.

Latest official figures for England indicate that an estimated 7.37 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of August, involving approximately 6.24 million individual patients. The poignant story of Finlay Roberts brought the devastating human cost of these systemic delays into sharp focus. Finlay passed away after spending the final hours of his young life in an A&E corridor at a north London hospital. His father, David Roberts, described the operational situation as a terrible mess, recalling how the family was temporarily moved into a room before being placed back out into a crowded corridor where his son clung to him while dying.

Finlay's mother, Liz Roberts, stated publicly that corridor care strips individuals of their fundamental dignity during their most vulnerable moments, recalling an instance when she was instructed to administer medication to her son directly in a corridor. In response to these distressing revelations, Health Secretary Cooper offered a direct apology to Finlay's parents on behalf of the NHS, firmly asserting that no child and no patient should ever be treated in a corridor. Meanwhile, the Whittington Health NHS Trust, where the incident occurred, extended its deepest condolences to the grieving family while acknowledging that they continue to experience exceptional levels of demand across emergency care services, forcing them to occasionally utilize temporary clinical spaces.