The harrowing accounts of Third World scenes experienced by more than 5,000 NHS nursing staff across the UK
More than 5,000 nursing staff across the UK were quizzed on the state of the NHS in their area.
These are just some of their harrowing responses:
Deaths that went unnoticed
In terrifying testimony to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) study, one nurse in the South East of England said a patient had lain dead in a corridor 'for hours'.
Another nurse, in Yorkshire and the Humber, said departments were becoming 'overwhelmed' on a daily basis, adding: 'At its worst, (we are) asking someone to go round and make sure people are still alive.'
'Developing world' casualty
Patients dying in chairs and trolleys in corridors was now a familiar occurrence, according to one nurse in the South East.
The nurse added: 'All the fundamentals of care have broken down – we are no better than a developing world casualty.'
A nurse in London said: 'It's awful – it feels like we're living in a Third World country or worse. I dread going into work and wish I'd picked an alternative career.'
Another nurse in the South said: 'I really felt bad for the patients – most of whom were elderly and unable to express their feelings about being cared for in very inhumane and Third World conditions.'
In terrifying testimony to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) study, one nurse in the South East of England said a patient had lain dead in a corridor 'for hours'.
Patients dying in chairs and trolleys in corridors was now a familiar occurrence, according to one nurse in the South East.
'This is worse than Covid...'
A nurse in Scotland said: 'I worked throughout Covid-19 and... this lack of care in the broken system is worse. People are dying as a result of ambulances being held at hospitals and calls are eventually being responded to almost two days after 999 has been called. This has to end, now!'
Left in tears near the toilets
A cancer patient whose immunity was very low because of her treatment was left in a busy spot near a staff room and toilet in a hospital in the South West.
A nurse said: 'She should have been in a side room. She was very upset and crying. We put screens around her but it was constantly busy. That poor lady eventually passed away.'
A nurse in London said: 'The department is over-capacity on a daily basis, leaving patients being cared for in corridors, on chairs when they should be in beds, on ambulance trolleys, in relatives' rooms, in viewing rooms, anywhere there is a space.'
A nurse in the East of England said: 'Patients miscarrying and returning for treatment are being bedded in the busy waiting room which is used for emergency attenders and an outpatient department.'
A cancer patient whose immunity was very low because of her treatment was left in a busy spot near a staff room and toilet in a hospital in the South West.
Beds in middle of ward bays
A nurse in Scotland said the hospital had started placing beds 'in the middle of bays in the wards in addition to corridor beds for more space'.
They added: 'It is degrading, undignified, and at times unsafe for patients who are already angry due to the long waits, sometimes waiting in the emergency department for over 35 hours... just to be put in the corridor. The system is broken.'
Delays for heart attack victims
Corridor care also creates problems for patients lucky enough to find a cubicle.
One nurse told of the chaos of patients having cardiac arrests in the corridor, adding: 'Having to roll a trolley through a corridor and the whole department to re-sus straddling a patient doing CPR while everyone watches on. It just feels so undignified.'
Patients in the South East had cardiac arrests in the corridor or in cubicles blocked by patients on trolleys in front of them, delaying lifesaving CPR.
A nurse at a hospital in the area said: 'Despite these events, we still are obliged to deliver care in the corridor.'
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Dead patients are lying undiscovered for hours in A&E because NHS staff are too overstretched to notice.
A severe shortage of beds means the sick are being left in 'animal-like' conditions in hospital car parks, cupboards and toilets.
Pregnant women are suffering miscarriages in corridors and the elderly are languishing unaided in soiled bedding.
Patients are cruelly 'stripped of their dignity' and routinely suffering avoidable deaths.
It has become 'normalised' for patients to be left for days at a time in chairs or trolleys in 'inappropriate settings'.
Demoralised nurses report caring for as many as 40 patients in a single corridor – some blocking fire exits or parked next to vending machines.
There, they have no access to a call bell, oxygen or lifesaving equipment and are often out of sight of the nursing station. Some are forced to go to the toilet in view of other patients.
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN chief executive, described the report as 'harrowing', adding staff were leaving because they 'cannot do it any more'.
She said: 'This devastating testimony from frontline nursing staff shows patients are coming to harm every day, forced to endure unsafe treatment in corridors, toilets, and even rooms usually reserved for families to visit deceased relatives.
'Vulnerable people are being stripped of their dignity and nursing staff are being denied access to vital lifesaving equipment.
'We can now categorically say patients are dying in this situation.'
A survey of NHS nursing staff for the report found 67 per cent are delivering care every day in overcrowded or unsuitable places. Some 91 per cent said the care was unsafe.
One nurse revealed how patients were dying 'on trolleys and chairs in the corridor and waiting rooms'.
Another told how a 90-year-old dementia sufferer was left scared and crying because no one was able to help.
She added: 'Seeing that lady, frightened and subjected to animal-like conditions is what broke me. At the end of that shift, I handed in my notice with no job to go to.'
Hospitals left a record 518,000 patients languishing on trolleys in A&E for 12 hours or more last year.
Long waits in A&E contributed to 14,000 deaths in 2023.
'The normalisation of 'corridor care' is an affront in a civilised society and for the sake of the public and staff alike must cease.'
'It's hard to think of a more certain way of both undermining public trust in the NHS and the retention of skilled nurses than tolerating very sick older people being 'stacked up' in passages, as if they were lorries on a motorway.'
Scotland's hospital wards are suffering a 'devastating collapse'
Patients sleep in beds lining a hospital corridor in an overrun A&E department
