Crowded hospitals 'treating patients in TV rooms'

Kitchens and storage areas are also used while extra beds are crammed into wards.

The poll of more than 900 nurses for Nursing Times found 63 per cent were aware of patients being placed in areas not designed for clinical care.

Nurses highlighted specific issues around safety, including patients having no access to call bells or water.

Four in five said they had raised the problem with senior staff but only a handful said the practice had been stopped.

Reasons included the hospital being "full" or a risk the Government's four-hour target for people to be seen in A&E may be breached, leading to unnecessary hospital admissions.

One said: "Areas used to accommodate patients are also used as storage areas and therefore have linen and spare equipment in them. One patient described it as an overspill car park."

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "Labour's failure to put patient care above its obsession with targets has meant that nurses are being forced to treat people in completely inappropriate places."

Patients' Association director Katherine Murphy said: "This survey highlights the gap between rhetoric and reality."

A Department of Health spokesman said most patients received good quality care but it was acknowledged there was more to do.