More than 3,500 patients a day treated in hospital corridors last month, data shows

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The waiting list for hospital treatment has also risen to its highest level in nearly a year, NHS data revealed today.

Officials said this autumn has been the “busiest ever” for the health service, with record numbers of people attending A&E.

An average of 3,558 patients received corridor care each day in October, with 2,718 in A&E departments and 840 in other hospital areas.

This is up from a revised average of 3,310 in September and the highest since figures began being collected in May.

In emergency departments, 74 per cent of patients were seen within four hours in October, down slightly from 74.4 per cent in September.

Doctors have raised concerns over “unnecessary risks” facing patients who are medically fit to leave hospital but are left languishing on wards “for weeks” due to delays in being sent home.

This prevents their beds from being used by someone else awaiting treatment, medics polled by the Royal College of Physicians said.

Delays in discharge occur for several reasons, including problems arranging social care in people’s own homes and issues with care home spaces and funding.

The poll found that 76 per cent of physicians reported delays in discharging their patients, with 61 per cent reporting delays linked to social care or community support and 56 per cent reporting delays finding rehabilitation, care home or nursing home places.

The RCP warned that patients left waiting after they are medically ready to leave face risks including infections, falls, physical deterioration and loss of independence.

One doctor reported that a patient acquired norovirus during a 28-day wait for a social worker to be allocated, followed by a further wait for a “best-interests meeting” and a placement, prolonging the admission by another week.

Royal College of Nursing general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger called today’s NHS figures “a mark of shame.”

She said: “This is an incredibly dangerous situation with much colder temperatures on the horizon.”

Unison national officer Sharon Bandesha said the crisis “often starts long before” patients reach a hospital corridor, with ambulance crews for to deliver “car park care.”

She said: “Patients can spend hours in the backs of ambulances as staff struggle to hand them over to overcrowded A&E departments.

“Meanwhile, other seriously ill patients are left waiting at home because ambulances are stuck outside hospitals.

“These are all symptoms of an NHS starved of resources. Ministers must tackle the staffing crisis through fair pay and proper investment across the NHS and social care.”

Society for Acute Medicine president Dr Vicky Price said that “pressures facing A&E do not end when patients leave the emergency department,” warning patients are also spending days in emergency department waiting rooms, “often in wholly unsuitable conditions.”

Keep Our NHS Public co-chair Dr Tony O’Sullivan said the figures are a “damning indictment of the government’s continued failure to confront the NHS crisis.”

Calling the numbers “a scandal in any season,” he said: “With winter still ahead, it should set alarm bells ringing across government.

“Behind every number is a person who needs safe care, privacy and dignity, and an NHS worker struggling to provide them in conditions that should never have become normal.

“Patients are paying for political failure with prolonged pain, worsening health and indignity. Ministers cannot claim to be fixing the NHS while accepting hospital corridors as an extension of the ward.

“We need urgent, sustained investment in NHS staff, beds reinstated that have been lost, community services and social care. No amount of spin about reform can turn a corridor into a safe place to nurse a sick patient.”

An estimated 7.38 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of September, relating to 6.24 million patients, up slightly from 7.37 million and the highest since October 2025.

Meanwhile, 116,353 people had waited more than a year to start routine treatment, up from 113,339 at the end of August.

Health Secretary Yvette Cooper warned pressures will increase as we head into winter.

“That’s why we are bringing in a new £40 million GP programme to help frail, elderly people stay well at home and expanding the Pharmacy First scheme, so people can get care where they need it most,” she said.