Patients are dying in A&E corridors - but I've seen how things could be different | Sophie

I began my career as an A&E nurse in 2010, when I was 21. It was a completely different world. If a patient needed immediate attention, there was easily the capacity for two nurses to look after them straight away. The NHS target of seeing patients within a four-hour window wasn’t something we gave much thought to. as it was pretty much a given that a patient would be admitted, transferred or discharged within that time. I don’t ever recall seeing a patient and feeling awful about how long they had waited.

It’s amazing to think how common it used to be for emergency departments to be almost empty at times in the evenings. As well as being much needed respite from the demands of the job. it was also a valuable time to learn from more senior colleagues. Nurses with decades of experience would take new recruits under their wings and help us practise our skills. That time is when I learned to plaster limbs and dress wounds. I wish I could do the same for my junior colleagues now. We used to be able to give timely, good care – now it has become near impossible.

Things started to noticeably change in about 2015. There were fewer slow periods, patients were having to wait longer. the four-hour target started to be missed more regularly. It gradually got worse over the following years,. really ramped up when restrictions relaxed after the second Covid outbreak in the winter of 2020-21. That was the bomb that hasn’t stopped going off. It felt like we were in a constant state of catch-up, beds filling up. more patients arriving, There was just no break.

Now, patients in my A&E can wait up to 16 hours to be seen by a doctor. Not in a million years would that have happened when I started. It’s not just those waiting for treatment in A&E either, as large numbers of our patients get stuck in our department despite having been assessed. referred to a specialist. There’s simply no room for them elsewhere.

Long waits are now normalised and much of my job is spent dealing with patients’ justified anger and upset. It’s exhausting, but I don’t blame them. Waiting that long in a brightly lit and noisy A&E, with little to no rest, is akin to torture. It would leave anyone upset.

Corridor care – patients being treated in corridors. other inappropriate spaces such as store cupboards – is a daily occurrence. Alongside long waits, it’s the clearest indicator of just how far care standards have fallen. In my hospital, we do our best to avoid it,. the level of demand is such that we have no choice. The other week, a patient of ours died in the corridor. Alone in a loud, busy environment and with no privacy. It was utterly heartbreaking.

It was no surprise to anyone who works in A&E that. as the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has pointed out, there has been a tenfold rise in deaths attributed to long waits in A&E over the past 10 years (30 a week to more than 300).

We must not become desensitised to this. Long waits and corridor care might have become alarmingly frequent, but that doesn’t mean they should be tolerated. If I took my dog to the vet. I would be appalled if I had to wait many hours for care before being treated in the waiting room or any other non-clinical space.

The NHS has for the first time today released data showing that nearly 2,500 patients a day last month received their care in a corridor. after my profession sounded the alarm via the Royal College of Nursing. Data reporting alone is a small victory, but now it must be used as a springboard to bring about the change that patients. the A&E workforce are crying out for.

The overwhelming pressures on A&Es are a system-wide problem and there are no quick fixes. We need real investment in hospital beds to improve the flow out of A&Es,. action to boost capacity in social care to improve discharge. We need greater investment in desperately overworked and understaffed nursing teams like mine. And we need to see significant. sustained funding in community and primary care to ensure fewer people need to attend A&E in the first place. If the government can get this right, many lives can be saved.

But this is also about those nursing staff who choose to dedicate their lives to serving patients in the health service. Those joining the NHS now have no choice but to give sub-standard care,. they inevitably feel responsible when patients do not get the treatment they deserve. But, as my experience as a newly qualified 21-year-old shows, things don’t have to be this way. If the government acts, that hope can return.

Sophie (not her real name) is a member of the Royal College of Nursing. a senior A&E nurse in a hospital in the south of England

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