Patients cared for in the Corridor of a large hospital in the United Kingdom: Sick, elderly, and sad

Care of patients in corridors of emergency departments is being normalised in many hospitals across the United Kingdom. Clinicians within Emergency Medicine and Acute Medicine have been discussing the impact of this care on patients, as well as the 'morale injury' on the staff looking after them. Whilst the authors of this paper have seen evidence of harm caused by delays of care to patients facing long waits in the emergency department, we believe that this is the first analysis that describes the case mix in a large UK hospital. Care in corridors affected patients with a broad range of conditions; 16% had a NEWS of 5 or more, 67% were elderly patients with markers of frailty, and 42% had a history of mental health problems or substance abuse.