The BMA’s Welsh Council chair leads plea to the Welsh Government alongside other organisations to urgently address corridor care at annual doctor’s conference
Whilst addressing members at the British Medical Association’s 2026 Annual Representatives Meeting (ARM) in Brighton, Dr Iona Collins said:
“In our hospitals, corridor care is normalised. Wales is lagging behind England in failing to eradicate this dangerous practice from our hospitals.
“But it doesn't have to be this way. In England, Barnet Hospital has successfully tackled its corridor care crisis. This hospital has made sure that its patients receive care in appropriate, dignified clinical locations. If they can do it, so can we.
“Yesterday, we coordinated a joint letter with other healthcare stakeholders to the Cabinet Minister for Health to highlight the requirement of a formal definition for corridor care, along with transparent national data reporting on the true scale of corridor care in Wales.”
Dr Collins said:
“Vulnerable patients are being denied the privacy, dignity and care they deserve, while staff are left trying to deliver safe treatment without the space, equipment or support they need.
“It is distressing for patients and families, and it places healthcare professionals in an impossible position: expected to provide safe care in conditions that make safe care harder and often impossible to deliver.
“Despite our joint petition with RCN Wales and the subsequent debate in the Senedd last December, we are yet to see any meaningful action.
“The new Welsh Government must address this crisis starting with the key calls of our petition, we cannot go on witnessing and facilitating, we must act now before more patients are put at risk.”
Ends
Notes to editors
- Since April 2025 BMA Cymru Wales has campaigned alongside RCN Wales for the Welsh Government to take action including a joint Senedd petition which gathered over 10,000 signatures after doctors and nurses raised the alarm on the issue with members reporting a rise in incidents and the normalising of the practice in hospitals throughout Wales.
- Senedd Petition
End Corridor care petition in Wales, The RCN and the BMA call on the Welsh Government to immediately:
1. Develop a national definition of corridor care which will apply in NHS Wales.
2. The Welsh Government to routinely collect, standardise and publish data on corridor care, as defined nationally, across all NHS Wales health boards and trusts.
3. Actively monitor corridor care as a patient safety indicator within NHS Wales’s performance and accountability system and regularly report to each health board’s governing board.
4. Health boards to be required to develop and implement local plans to mitigate the need for corridor care in the immediate term
5. The Welsh Government to work with professional bodies and unions to eliminate corridor care. It will nationally review capacity across NHS Wales, deliver a clear, costed workforce plan, and invest in the workforce to ensure hospitals and wider care settings can meet demand now and in the future.