In its new report, ‘The Longest Wait – Our A&E Crisis Demands an Emergency Response’ Age UK lays bare the devastating impact that ‘Corridor Care’ and long waiting times in A&E can have on older people. The charity says that it’s a crisis hiding in plain sight in our hospitals and that Ministers need to act urgently to tackle it, with a proper plan, including setting specific deadlines to bring an end to corridor care.
Long waits and corridor care in overly busy A&E departments are being experienced by patients of all ages, but they are particularly likely to happen to older people, especially the oldest old, including some who are extremely ill or even dying.
The new report shows that:
• 1 in 3 (one third or 32%) of those aged 90 and older are waiting 12 hours or more in A&E to be admitted or discharged home in 2024/25
• The number of instances of ‘corridor care’ of 12 hours or more has increased 525-fold since 2015/16
• Between 2019/20 and 2024/25 the number of attendances to A&E that resulted in a 12-hour wait for a bed increased by nearly 2000%
• Last year, 532,451 people experienced corridor care of 12 hours or more.
Implications of corridor care
An overwhelming majority of people aged 65+ polled by Age UK agree that corridor care is undignified, unsafe and that patients should never be cared for in corridors under any circumstances. Few would argue with those sentiments. However, there are wider implications. The charity’s survey also revealed that a third of Age UK supporters said they would be less likely to go to hospital because of the corridor care crisis, and 53% said they would feel more anxious if they found themselves there.
Long A&E waits and corridor care affect staff too. The Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) 2025 ‘On the Frontline of the UK's Corridor Care Crisis’ report, surveying nursing staff across the UK, found that corridor care is a significant feature of many staff’s daily experience: two thirds (67%) of the respondents said that they deliver care in an inappropriate setting every day. This is affecting their ability to care for people and is leaving them demoralised and distressed. xiv
Among the A&E nurses who responded to the RCN’s survey, 91% said that patient care and safety is being compromised.
Lack of hospital planning and care in the community
The problem usually stems in large part from the hospital’s inability to process people quickly once they’re through the door. On any given day, there are 13,000 people medically fit for discharge stuck in hospitals in our country, almost all of them aged 65 plus.
There are many reasons for delayed discharge, and this issue is widely recognised as contributing to inefficiencies in hospital care. Westminster think tank Re:State has recently published the third in its ‘Hospital of the Future’ series in which it addresses this issue of patient flow and makes a series of recommendations.
Age UK make its own suggestions to speed up the flow in hospitals, saying that the following areas need to be addressed:
• Poor organisation and co-ordination of functions and activities within the hospital
• A lack of social care and other forms of support in the community
• Delays in accessing community health services such as District Nurses and Occupational Therapists.
An increase in the availability of senior medical staff in and around A&E, particularly of geriatricians who specialise in the care of older people, can also help to speed things up because with their experience and insight they are better able to make quick decisions about what’s best for an older person. In some cases, the right course of action may be for them to return home and be treated there.
Caroline Abrahams CBE, Age UK Charity Director, says: “Corridor care and long A&E waits are like a rot eating away the heart of the NHS, undermining public trust and destroying the ability of committed hospital staff to be able to take pride in a job well done. As a result, we fear that poor quality care in and around some A&E departments is now almost expected – a truly dire situation we must act urgently to turn around.
“The good news is that these problems can be tackled and solved – some hospitals have the problem of long waits and corridor care under control. There’s a lot that hospitals themselves can do to improve the situation in their A&Es, but what’s most needed now is for Government to step up, show determined leadership and use all the levers at its disposal – including targets, inspection and funding – to bring this crisis, which is disproportionately hurting our oldest old, to an end.”
Calls on Government
To restore a sense of decency, and to give older people the dignity and respect they deserve, Age UK calls for the Government to implement a package of measures now:
• Urgently produce a funded operational plan to reduce the incidence of long A&E waits and end Corridor Care, with specific deadlines and milestones.
• Establish a robust system to collect and publish regular data on corridor care (as well as long A&E waits), and the impact on the public, including by age and ethnicity.
• Appoint a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care to be accountable for reducing long A&E waits and ending corridor care and require them to report on progress to Parliament every six months.
• Turbo-charge a peer learning programme for hospitals and Integrated Care Boards to share proven solutions, tackle barriers to discharge and protect and support NHS staff.
• Work at pace to implement the 10 Year Health Plan, especially the ‘hospital to home’ shift and creation of a Neighbourhood Health Service, ensuring social care and the VCSFE are fully played in – so fewer older people need to come to A&E in the first place.
