‘I have nightmares of dead bodies’: Patients dying and undiscovered for hours in hospital corridors

Patients are dying in corridors and going undiscovered for hours while the sick are left to soil themselves, nurses have said, revealing the scale of the corridor crisis inside the UK’s hospitals.

In a “harrowing” report built from the experiences of more than 5,000 NHS nursing staff, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) found almost seven in 10 (66.81%) say they are delivering care in overcrowded or unsuitable places, including converted cupboards, corridors and even car parks, on a daily basis.

Demoralised staff are looking after as many as 40 patients in a single corridor, unable to access oxygen, cardiac monitors, suction and other lifesaving equipment.

Women are miscarrying in corridors, while some nurses report being unable to carry out adequate CPR on patients having heart attacks.

Sara (not her real name) said she was on shift when a doctor told her there was a dying patient who had been waiting in the hospital’s corridor for six hours.

“It took a further two hours to get her into an adequate care space to make her clean and comfortable,” she told Sky News.

“That’s a human being, someone in the last hours of their life in the middle of a corridor with a detoxing patient vomiting and being abusive behind them and a very poorly patient in front of them, who was confused, screaming in pain. It was awful on the family, and it was awful on the patient.”

Dead patients ‘not found for hours’

A nurse working in the southeast of England quit her job after witnessing an elderly lady in “animal-like conditions”.

She told the RCN: “A 90-year-old lady with dementia was scared, crying and urinating in the bed after asking several times for help to the toilet. Seeing that lady, frightened and subjected to animal-like conditions is what broke me.

“At the end of that shift, I handed in my notice with no job to go to. I will not work where this is a normal day-to-day occurrence.”

Another nurse in the South East said a patient died in a corridor and “wasn’t discovered for hours”.

Sara told Sky another woman needed resuscitating after the oxygen underneath her trolley ran out. Sara was one of just two nurses caring for more than 30 patients on that corridor.

“I have had nightmares – I have a nightmare that I walk out in the corridor and there are dead bodies in body bags on the trolleys,” she said, growing visibly emotional.

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No electricity to plug in computers

One nurse, who spoke to Sky News, said the conditions were “undignified” and “inhumane”.

“It’s not just corridors – we utilise chairs, cupboards, whatever space is available in the hospital to be repurposed into a care space, in the loosest sense of that term. These spaces are unsafe.”

Some spaces, she said, don’t even have basic electricity for nurses to plug in their computers.

The nurse, who spoke to Sky on the condition of anonymity, said she has experienced burnout multiple times over the state of her workplace.

“I have come to the conclusion this week I don’t think I can continue working in the NHS or as a nurse,” she said.

“It breaks my soul; I love what I do when I am able to do it in the right way. I like caring for people, I like making people better, I also like providing a dignified death.”

She added: “I want to look after the institution I was born into, but for the sake of my family and my mental health, I don’t know how much more I can give.”

With 32,000 nursing vacancies in England alone, data also shows around one in eight nurses leave the profession within five years of qualifying.

Staff ‘not proud of the care they are giving’

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) says the testimony, which runs to over 400 pages, must mark a “moment in time”. In May 2024, the RCN declared a “national emergency” over corridor care in NHS services.

Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: “At the moment, [nursing staff] are not proud of the care they are giving.”

“We hear stories of escalation areas and temporary beds that have been open for two years,” she added. “That is no longer escalation, it’s understaffed and underfunded capacity that is pretty shocking care for patients. We have to get a grip on that.”

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She called the situation “a disgrace”, citing abuse of staff as another reason for people leaving the profession in droves.

Last week, a nurse was left with “life-changing injuries” after being stabbed by a man while at work.

“The NHS used to be the envy of the world and we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and say ‘what needs to change?’

“The biggest concern for us is that the public Is starting to lose a little faith in their care, and that has to stop. We absolutely have to sort this out.”

Commenting on the RCN’s report, Duncan Burton, chief nursing officer for England, said the NHS had experienced one of the “toughest winters” in recent months, and the report “should never be considered the standard to which the NHS aspires”.

“Despite the challenges the NHS faces, we are seeing extraordinary efforts from staff who are doing everything they can to provide safe, compassionate care every day,” he added. “As a nurse, I know how distressing it can be when you are unable to provide the very best standards of care for patients.”

Have you experienced corridor care in an NHS hospital? Get in touch on NHSstories@sky.uk