NHS to publish data on children in corridor care, health secretary says

The health secretary has told MPs that the NHS will begin publishing official data on children who receive corridor care, after a news investigation exposed the scale of the practice. Yvette Cooper said no child should be treated in a corridor and that children must be an urgent priority.

At Parliament, the issue was raised by the Liberal Democrats following the investigation. It reported that thousands of children are treated each year in corridors and waiting rooms in NHS hospitals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Coverage also focused on two-year-old Finley Roberts, who died after spending hours in a busy A&E corridor shortly before his death. One report said he had gone to A&E with stomach ache and died from a twisted bowel after waiting on his father's lap in a corridor for nine hours. His parents said corridor care was emblematic of a broken system and robbed people of dignity. The Whittington Hospital extended its condolences but said it still faces exceptional demand and that some patients may receive care in temporary clinical areas, including corridors.

Cooper apologised to Finley's parents on behalf of the NHS. She said no patient should be treated in a corridor, and no child should be treated that way. She said corridor care had not been properly measured before this summer and was not measured by age. She had insisted on new figures covering children and asked the NHS England chief executive to draw up urgent new standards for how children are treated in A&E, including an urgent plan to eliminate corridor care for children as a priority. She also said there would be a plan across the Parliament to end corridor care more broadly.

In a broadcast interview, Cooper was pressed on a letter from 16 health groups, patients, ambulance workers, nurses and charities demanding urgent action. She agreed nobody should be treated in corridors and said the government had a major turnaround programme underway. She also set out winter measures:

• another 14 urgent treatment centres and same-day emergency care units
• another 25 due to open in time for this winter
• an additional 140 million pounds

She pointed to work at Watford, where she said corridor care had been eliminated by changing hospital systems. In Parliament, she said she was introducing new assessments of corridor care involving children. Finley's parents said they were grateful that politicians were taking the issue seriously and hoped his case would lead to meaningful measures to end the practice for children and adults.