The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has declared a "national emergency" after their report found that nursing staff are regularly forced to provide care to patients in chairs and corridors.

It suggested that more than 1 in 3 nursing staff working in typical hospital settings delivered care in inappropriate settings, such as corridors, on their last shift.

Our survey of almost 11,000 frontline nursing staff across the UK shows the extent to which corridor care has been normalised.

Patients are regularly treated on chairs in corridors for extended periods of time, sometimes days.

RCN said that these instances must now be determined as ‘Never Events’ in NHS services, in the same way that having the wrong limb operated on or a foreign object being left inside a patients’ body already are.

They are asking for mandatory national reporting of patients being cared for in corridors, to reveal the extent of hospital overcrowding, as part of a plan to eradicate the practice.

Heavy patient flow and lack of capacity sees nursing staff left with no space to place patients are the main reasons for this worrying situation. Poor population health and a lack of investment in prevention is exacerbating the problem, the report said.

It also suggested corridor care is “a symptom of a system in crisis”, with patient demand in all settings, from primary to community and social care, outstripping workforce supply.

The result is patients left unable to access care near their homes and instead being forced to turn to hospitals.

Professor Nicola Ranger, acting RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: “This is a tragedy for our profession. Our once world-leading services are treating patients in car parks and store cupboards.

"The elderly are languishing on chairs for hours and patients are dying in corridors. The horror of this situation cannot be understated. It is a national emergency for patient safety and today we are raising the alarm.

“Treating patients in corridors used to be an exceptional circumstance. Now it is a regular occurrence and a symptom of a system in crisis."