‘Devastating collapse in standards’ in NHS amid ‘corridor care crisis’ – report
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Scotland’s NHS has been hit with a “devastating collapse in care standards”, with patients “routinely coming to harm” and unable to access basic services, a report by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has found. The nursing union said “demoralised” staff across the nation’s hospitals have witnessed patients going into cardiac arrest while forced to lay in corridors due to a lack of beds.
The RCN said there was a “corridor care crisis” in hospitals across the UK. Its survey of NHS staff includes testimonies from more than 5,000 nurses in the UK, with 500 of those being from Scotland. The RCN said its 400-page report must be a “wake-up call” for the country’s political leaders.
Its report found staff in Scotland are caring for multiple patients in a single corridor and unable to access oxygen, cardiac monitors, suction and other lifesaving equipment. They say patients are being left with no access to bathroom facilities or buzzers, with nurses forced to deliver personal care to incontinent patients with no privacy.
Nine in 10 of those surveyed said patient safety is being compromised. A Scottish nurse said: “Department with capacity for 13 beds, we had 40 in, with patients on chairs having treatments administered, also sitting in the waiting room on cardiac monitors, using privacy screens to put around patients to use the bedpan.”.
One unnamed member of staff said they were forced to clean an elderly incontinent patient in the charge nurse’s office. Another added: “A very confused patient was brought to the corridor. This patient wandered the corridors and was found in different areas of the ward multiple times.
