What does corridor care say about the state of the NHS? - Ismail Mulla

Ambulance workers queuing up exhausted as they wait for beds to clear for patients that they had wheeled in hours ago.

It’s a reminder that the issues in the NHS have not magically disappeared following the change in Government. Even Houdini would deem the idea of fixing the NHS an illusion too far-fetched to even bother with.

Fix it we must, though. An aging, oft-unhealthy and certainly growing population cannot do without it.

NHS England says it has produced the guidance on “providing safe and good quality care in temporary escalation spaces”.

How long before these “temporary escalation spaces” become a permanent feature?

Corridor care has become normalised, there’s even laminated signs on walls signposting where patients wait on trolleys at some hospitals.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) calls the guidance “nonsensical” and says it is “out of touch”.

Even the guidance acknowledges corridor care is “not acceptable and should not be considered as standard” but due to current pressures some hospitals are “using temporary escalation spaces more regularly – and this use is no longer ‘in extremis’”.

As the RCEM says it is “not possible to provide safe and good quality care” in corridors or cupboards.

Labour promised much before the General Election. But since forming Government it has spent more time telling the public about how awful a state everything has been left by the previous.

That won’t wash anymore. The electorate put them there not to tell everyone how bad things are, we can see that when loved ones are being treated in corridors.

It would be churlish to not acknowledge the various industrial disputes that Labour had brought to an end in the healthcare sector.

What the previous Health Secretaries were thinking, trying to stare down healthcare workers so closely removed from a global pandemic, I’ll never know.

But there is a lingering doubt about Labour’s ability to actually reform the NHS. If the Government thinks targets and added bureaucracy are going to be the cure then they have clearly misdiagnosed the issue.

The NHS needs major surgery if it is going to get off the sick bed and as is often the case with surgery, it’s going to be painful.

The real concern though is the course that this Government has already set off on. It’s aiming to put out fires in the NHS when it would be far more cogent to deal with the cause of the fires.

Which is why its lip-service to social care is simply not enough. It is clear that wishy-washy statements on creating a National Care Service is enough.

Imagine if Clement Attlee’s government, instead of facing the future, decided to simply say maybe later.

Yes money is tight but money was tight then and besides the case for diverting money away from the NHS to social care gets stronger by the day.

The more patients that can be released from hospital, the less pressure there will be on frontline services. I hate the term bed blocking, it suggests the patient is at fault when the majority just want to go home and be left in peace. But the reality is the social care provisions are just not in place for them to be released.

It would be funny, if the situation wasn’t so severe, but Boris Johnson was the only one that came close to even beginning to deal with the crisis in care.

One of the fires that does need to be put out in the NHS is the bloated management teams. Too many have made careers for themselves from doing little.

The Government has promised a new pay framework for chief executives, set to be published in April. Whether it clamps down on poor performance, as promised, remains to be seen.

Finally, it is also incumbent on us, the people, to take personal responsibility for our health. The more we look after ourselves, the less likely we will be to need to access the NHS.