NHS staff are increasingly being forced to treat patients in inappropriate and undignified environments including corridors, waiting areas and cupboards. This is unsafe and distressing for patients and staff. Doctors and nurses have shared their serious concerns about patient safety.
About our campaign
BMA Cymru Wales has joined forces with RCN Wales to launch a joint petition which calls on the Welsh Government to put an end to corridor care.
Watch our video
Watch our video to learn more about the impact of corridor care and how you can help make a difference.
How you can help
Sign our petition
Help us to put a stop to corridor care. We need 10,000 signatures to secure a debate in the Senedd. We need to show the Welsh Government that corridor care is unacceptable, sign the petition today and help us to put a stop to this safe and dehumanising practice.
The petition calls on the Welsh Government to immediately:
1. Begin recording and reporting on corridor care in Wales, starting by making it a ‘never event’ for patients to receive care in chairs for more than 24 hours.
2. Pause reductions in NHS Wales hospital beds. Nationally review capacity and deliver a clear, costed workforce plan to ensure hospitals and wider care settings can meet future demand.
3. Invest in community-based care by:
- increasing the number of District Nurses (and nurses with a community nursing master’s degree) back to, and above, 2010 levels to meet demand.
- restoring the proportion of NHS Wales funding in general practice to historic levels, with aspirations to increase, so that we train, recruit and retain enough GPs to move toward the OECD average number of GPs per 1000 people.
4. Prioritise prevention and early intervention. Sustainable emergency care needs a strong focus on population health and early diagnosis to reduce avoidable crises.
On the day of the launch members of BMA Cymru Wales and RCN Wales took their concerns to the Senedd, where they shared their experiences with members of the Senedd who shared their support for our calls to end corridor care. We will continue to lobby them to address this issue.
Read our press release for more information about the petition.
Corridor care data in Wales
A recent survey from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine showed that in the first quarter of 2025, every Accident and Emergency Department in Wales recorded seeing patients in unsafe, inappropriate spaces with almost half of patients waiting for an inpatient bed.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of data in this area and that is why the petition calls on the Welsh Government to start recording and reporting on corridor care in Wales to identify the frequency and introduce accountability to help phase the practice of corridor care out.
Here are some of the testimonies from doctors working in Wales.
Seeing patients and then having to put them back into a waiting room is the worst aspect of medicine. We’re extremely concerned that the ‘normalising’ of seeing patients in completely inappropriate spaces will mean that patients come to significant harm.Stephen Kelly, chair of the BMA’s Welsh Consultants committee
Reclining chairs are now being offered to patients, this is being normalised and it’s completely wrong. All patients deserve dignity and a place to rest.Dr Atul Kalhan
I am enraged daily by this situation; more patients now have to suffer the indignity of corridor care where they have no privacy, no dignity, endure bright lighting and loud noises and can become disorientated.Dr Margaret Chirgwin