New NHS figures show Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust recorded an average of 27 corridor care cases a day in its emergency departments during May.
The data, published by NHS England as part of its new Corridor Care Urgent and Emergency Care Daily Situation Reports, shows the trust recorded a daily average of 27.0 instances of corridor care in emergency departments across the month.
The highest daily figure reported by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust was 39 on 18 May, while the lowest was 18, recorded on both 1 May and 12 May.
The figures relate to patients who received corridor care for more than 45 minutes within the previous 24-hour reporting period in an emergency department. NHS England says this includes patients receiving treatment, waiting for assessment, admission or transfer, but does not include ambulance handover delays, which are reported separately.
Separate figures for general and acute hospital beds show NUH recorded an average of 25.9 patients receiving corridor care at 8am each day during May. This measure excludes emergency departments and relates to patients receiving care for more than 45 minutes on a ward outside a bed space.
The highest 8 am figure for in-hospital corridor care at NUH was 38 patients, recorded on 5 May. The lowest was 13, recorded on 23 May.
Across the month, the NHS England data shows NUH recorded 838 emergency department corridor care instances and 802 in-hospital corridor care patients at 8am across the 31 daily reporting periods.
The figures are part of a new national dataset intended to provide greater visibility of corridor care in hospitals across England. NHS England describes corridor care as a significant patient safety and experience issue and says the NHS is committed to reducing the practice in both emergency departments and inpatient wards.
However, NHS England cautions that the figures are classed as management information and are subject to only minimal validation. It says the data collection is new and remains immature, meaning figures may change as reporting develops and local systems improve.
Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs King’s Mill Hospital, Newark Hospital and Mansfield Community Hospital, recorded zero corridor care cases for both emergency department activity and in-hospital corridor care in the May dataset.
Both NUH and Sherwood Forest Hospitals sit within the NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board area. The ICB’s reported corridor care totals for May match the NUH figures because Sherwood Forest Hospitals recorded zero in the same dataset.
NHS England says a zero in the dataset means a provider reported zero corridor care instances for that metric, while blank entries would indicate that a provider did not submit data.
