NHS leaders in North West Trusts with the highest levels of corridor care are getting specialised and tailored support as part of plans to eradicate corridor care by the end of this Parliament.

The support has been announced alongside Government plans to open and expand urgent care sites in the region.

NHS England’s Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) team are working with the most affected hospitals across England, including the North West, to provide bespoke clinical support to leadership staff.

This comes as early data shows the majority of corridor care is concentrated in a small number of NHS trusts.

The deployment in the North West has resulted in improvements in emergency departments at several NHS trusts.

The main corridor at Royal Blackburn Hospital, for instance, has been cleared of patients, with an 18% reduction in 12-hour waits.

Significant inroads to tackle corridor care have also been made at Blackpool, with a 43% cut in 12-hour waits and reductions in their patient’s length of stay and those waiting for discharge.

The work comes on the back of significant progress across urgent and emergency care, including the shortest A&E waiting times in four years and ambulance response times the fastest for half a decade despite record demand.

The GIRFT team provides tailored support to hospitals using learning from those NHS Trusts who have already made significant progress into reducing corridor care this year.

The support they provide includes identifying how to improve discharge and flow through the hospital, helping trusts to better understand their own data so they can improve predicting when surges in demand may appear and supporting clinical leaders in improved decision making.

Alongside introducing a new, measurable definition of corridor care, the targeted support is the latest in a series of steps the government is taking to drive urgent improvements and show it is serious about delivering for patients.

40 new and expanded urgent care sites

To further tackle pressures in busy hospital departments, the government has also confirmed the locations for 40 new and expanded urgent care sites across England.

This includes expanding the Stockport Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC), establishing a new Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) Unit in Alder Hey, and expanding the current SDEC at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh.

The expansion in the North West, backed by £215.5 million across England, are part of 10 new UTCs, four expanded UTCs, five new SDEC services and 22 expanded SDECs across the country to provide significant increase in frontline capacity.

This will help ease pressure on A&E departments by ensuring more patients are treated in the right setting, reducing waiting times and improving patient flow through hospitals to tackle corridor care.

UTCs treat minor illnesses and injuries such as sprains, cuts and infections, with walk-in appointments available.

SDEC services provide rapid assessment, diagnosis and treatment for patients with urgent but stable conditions – avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions.

Some of the new and expanded services will open later this year, further strengthening NHS capacity ahead of the winter.

Dr Michael Gregory, Regional Medical Director for NHS England in the North West, said: “Corridor care is not acceptable and that is why in the North West we’re backing trusts with tailored clinical support through GIRFT and expanding urgent care capacity so more people can be treated quickly in the right place. These changes, alongside a relentless focus on discharge, flow and early senior clinical decision-making, are already helping cut long waits, and we will keep working with local partners to deliver safer, more dignified care for everyone.”

Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting said: “For too long, the normalisation of corridor care has been baked into our NHS – it’s unacceptable, undignified and exactly why this government is shifting the dial for patients and staff.

“We’re sending in specialist teams of experts to identify the causes in some of the worst offending trusts and swiftly rectify the problems they find.“That, plus new and expanded urgent care centres will mean patients are treated more quickly and in the right place, while easing pressure on busy A&Es to care for the most serious cases.

“We are cutting waiting times and moving away from unacceptable corridor care, building an NHS that treats patients with dignity.

“After the NHS performed significantly better this winter, we are going further to strengthen services and build a system fit for the future, backed by record investment.”

NHS England published clear a definition of corridor care for the first time last month to allow trusts to begin collecting data, which will be published from May.

It has also outlined its ‘model emergency department’ – a blueprint for how services should operate from this year. This will involve more assessments and triage by senior clinicians earlier, allowing patients to be cared for away from busy A&Es where appropriate.

Professor Tim Briggs, NHS England’s national director for clinical improvement, elective and UEC recovery, and Chair of the GIRFT programme, said: “We’re working hard to support the trusts facing the biggest challenges with patient flow and we’re seeing some good early evidence of reductions in corridor care for patients.

“We have worked alongside these trusts to produce guidance and standards, as well as providing hands-on support, which will help them significantly reduce corridor care. Our focus over the next six months is to take what we’ve learned and cascade it across the whole NHS, so we can improve care for patients and eliminate this issue once and for all.”