Hospitals: Standards
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the time taken to discharge medically fit patients on the use of corridor care in NHS hospitals.
Answered by Dr Zubir Ahmed
The Government is clear that patients should expect and receive the highest standard of care and is determined to consign corridor care to the history books. Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan, published in June 2025, set out the steps we are taking to ensure that patients will receive better, faster, and more appropriate emergency care this winter, backed by a total of nearly £450 million of funding.
The plan sets as a priority that hospitals should tackle the delays in patients waiting to be discharged, both for the benefit of those patients and to improve flow through hospitals. Trusts should eliminate discharge delays of more than 48 hours caused by in-hospital issues, and work with local authorities to tackle the longest delays, starting with those over 21 days, and to profile discharges by pathway to support local planning.
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