My neighbouring patient died alone in the night - dangerous corridor care must end

This blog is written by Margaret, an NHS patient based in London. 

My recent NHS experience shows the risk and trauma that patients are faced with when overwhelmed hospitals resort to using “corridor care”. I am telling my story because we need to raise the alarm on this dangerous crisis, and those in power must take urgent action to end it. 

On Christmas Day, my husband found me unresponsive in bed. He couldn’t wake me and so he called an ambulance. The ambulance came in about 20 minutes and I was rushed to my local hospital, where I was taken into resus and given oxygen and nebulisers. 

I remained unresponsive and was in delirium. The suspected diagnosis was a chest infection or pneumonia, but because of my asthma it was much more severe.

That night, my sister spoke to a doctor who said there was not a single bed in the whole of the hospital. After a day or two, I was moved out of  the resuscitation room to an area that was called ‘ambulance drop off site’. 

I understood this to be an area for people who came in by ambulance and needed to be admitted, but for whom there were no beds. There were about 6 or 7 beds in the area and it was staffed, but it wasn’t a ward. I was there for two days. 

When someone else needed space, they moved the man next to me down to the end of the row, out of sight of the staff. At 11.30pm that night the staff found him dead in his bed - devastatingly, he had died alone and out of sight. 

I found this extremely upsetting. I believe that due to my distress, I was moved in the night to an area that looked like a lift. I was left there alone all night and was really scared. 

The next day they finally found me a bed on a ward. After a few days there I tested positive for flu and was moved to a room without windows. As I’m slightly claustrophobic I found this very difficult, yet I had to be there for about a week. My stay was extended by a day or two while they sorted out the equipment I needed to take home with me.

Overall, I am very grateful to the NHS who saved my life. But the level of care fell far short of what any patient deserves, due to shortages of staff, beds and resources. 

At some points when I was very ill, I didn’t think that I would have made it out of there alive. My heart breaks for the man further down the row who died all alone at night. No patient should ever be put in that position. 

Both patients and health workers urgently need the government to invest in NHS beds, staffing and social care in order to end dangerous corridor care once and for all.