Hospital patients are “dying in corridors”, nurses have warned as they declared a “national emergency” in the NHS.

Patients are regularly treated on chairs in corridors for extended periods of time – and sometimes even days, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has said.

They are also receiving cancer diagnoses in public areas, and may have to undergo intimate examinations there too, the union added.

A survey of almost 11,000 frontline nursing staff across the UK shows the practice has become widespread, the RCN said.

When asked about their most recent shift, almost two in five reported delivering care in an inappropriate area, such as a corridor.

Patient privacy and dignity had been compromised, almost seven in 10 said.

“You wouldn’t treat a dog this way,” one nurse said.

Another nurse recounted a patient with dementia being in a corridor for hours without oxygen.

They said: “When I arrived, she was in a wheelchair on a corridor with her daughter. She was extremely agitated, crying and confused. This care environment for any patient, never mind with dementia, was completely inappropriate.”

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The RCN’s acting general secretary, Professor Nicola Ranger, will declare a national emergency at the start of the union’s annual conference.

The organisation will also publish a report on clinical care in inappropriate areas.

In order to show how widespread the practice has become, the RCN is calling for mandatory reporting of patients cared for in corridors.

“Our once world-leading services are treating patients in car parks and store cupboards,” Prof Ranger will tell delegates.

“The elderly are languishing on chairs for hours on end and patients are dying in corridors. The horror of this situation cannot be understated.

“It is a national emergency for patient safety and today we are raising the alarm.”

She will add: “Receiving a cancer diagnosis in a public area isn’t care. It’s a nightmare for all involved. We need to call it out as nursing staff, and health leaders and ministers need to take responsibility.”

Corridor care is a “symptom of a system in crisis”, the RCN’s report says, with patient demand in all settings, from primary to community and social care, outstripping workforce supply.

When my grandfather, Charles ‘Charlie’ Truman, reached the shores of Normandy on 6 June 1944 as part of 150,000 Allied troops seeking to free France – and the rest of Western Europe – of the Nazis, he didn’t think he would ever be seeing his pregnant wife again.

But a decision he made the night before ended up saving his life.

Then 26, he was among the first of 150,000 Allied troops landing on Sword Beach for Operation Overlord, the historic invasion of northern France which would end up marking the beginning of the end of World War Two.

On the night before the invasion and as troops descended into the landing craft, they were ordered to leave their bags behind.

My grandpop, as I called him, was never really one to disobey but faced by the daunting uncertainty of what kind of fate awaited him, he decided to keep one item: a silver frame with a picture of his wife Joyce.

She was five months pregnant with their first daughter – my aunt.

At dawn, a few hours after making that impulsive decision, he was running hard and fast, pushing inland after landing on the Normandy beach.

Their objective was a German bunker complex codenamed Hillman.

He ran ahead of his company, unaware of the size of the Hillman fortress ahead of him – an aerial photo provided by intelligence just days before D-Day showed the fortification covered in vegetation, thus rendering the real scale of it invisible.

Underground, 60 German soldiers were inside the network of bunkers.

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Charlie and his comrades from A Company came under heavy machine gun fire, as they advanced with fixed bayonets.

Charlie was spotted by German gunners and shot down by enemy fire.

One bullet hit Charles in the lungs and knocked him down. A second round came in immediately, this time aimed at his chest.

That second bullet hit what became my grandfather’s personal body armour – that silver photo frame – and deflected through his arm.

He patched himself up with the single dressing he had, and started to crawl back down towards the beach.

Losing a dangerous amount of blood, he had to stop. Help came when fellow troops found him and carried him back where he awaited the medic boats, with shrapnel falling all around the casualties along the shoreline.

Unlike so many of his comrades that day, Charlie made it back to England. He spent 16 weeks in chest units all over the country.

A brief telegram was sent to my pregnant grandmother explaining her husband was in a critical condition.

She made her way down alone to the south coast to find him, not knowing what condition he was in.

It had been bad – at one point he was removed from resuscitation and read his last rites, but he pulled through.

My grandfather, like so many other veterans who survived that D-Day, didn’t repeat the stories very often.

I know it troubled him for years. But when he did, he always said that a combination of luck and love had saved him in those moments.

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It’s hard to pick out the most memorable survival stories from the veterans of D-Day, especially when it becomes ingrained within your own family’s history.

My grandfather, Charles ‘Charlie’ Truman was born and raised in Lincolnshire. He started working from seven years old, making deliveries for the family’s butcher shop, whilst learning the trade along the way.

He left school at 14 and became a full time butcher, until the outbreak of war in 1939.

The same year, he joined the Suffolk Regiment (now Royal Anglian Regiment), and became the runner for his company.

Runners were expected to carry out their duties swiftly. As Charlie had always excelled at cross-country, he was a natural for this job.

As a child he would let me run my fingers on the bullet wounds, never really wanting to go into the fear and horror he would have seen that day.

He lost several friends, and was so close to death himself, spared only by an act of love.

Charlie Truman died in December 2011.

Sir Keir Starmer will put defence and national security at the heart of Labour’s election pitch to voters during a visit to the North West on Monday.

Sir Keir will pledge Labour as the “party of national security” as he meets forces veterans and candidates.

He will also reaffirm the party’s commitment to the so-called “nuclear deterrent triple lock”, which includes a commitment to construct the four new nuclear submarines in Barrow-in-Furness.

The Labour leader will also repeat his ambition to increase defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) – a target Rishi Sunak has said he wants to meet by 2030 – when economic conditions allow.

As well as the commitment to build four new submarines, under the “triple lock” Labour is also promising to maintain Britain’s continuous at-sea deterrent and deliver all future upgrades needed for the submarines to patrol the waters.

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The Vanguard-class submarines are due to be replaced by the bigger Dreadnought-class submarines in the 2030s, with between £31bn and £41bn set aside for the upgrade, according to the House of Commons Library.

Sir Keir’s focus on defence is part of a wider strategy to convince voters that the party has changed from the days of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

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The Conservatives have consistently pointed out that the current Labour leader served in Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet when he held critical stances towards NATO and the nuclear deterrent Trident.

As part of the bid to reassure voters, Sir Keir has chosen 14 ex-military personnel to stand for the party at the election.

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Sir Keir said: “National security will always come first in the changed Labour Party I lead.

“Keeping our country safe is the bedrock of stability that the British people rightly expect from their government.

“My message to them is clear: Labour has changed. No longer the party of protest, Labour is the party of national security.

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“The excellent former service personnel that are standing as Labour candidates are a testament to that change.”

Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, said 12 current members of Sir Keir’s top team – including his deputy Angela Rayner and shadow foreign secretary David Lammy – previously voted against Trident.

“We know Rayner is now making the decisions in Labour, so Starmer’s supposed backing for Trident is meaningless,” he claimed.

“Labour’s refusal to commit to 2.5% defence spending by 2030 shows that they are a danger to our national security. Uncertain times call for a clear plan and bold action to chart a course to a secure future, only the Conservatives offer that.”