NHS: Corridor Care

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Baroness. Corridor care is perhaps one of the most visible and distressing symptoms of an NHS that the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, described as broken. We have to fix a number of the processes. I welcome that we are expanding urgent care access, for example, in primary, community and mental health settings, which will reduce demand on services. However, without publicly available data and the clinical operational standards that we are setting, the change will not be made as quickly as we would all like. There are immediate actions, as well as medium and long-term actions.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, my mother-in-law, Molly, is 110.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

I shall pass on your Lordships’ best wishes to her. Last year, she was taken ill and the ambulance took her to a Liverpool hospital in the early afternoon, but, after some tests, no bed could be found for her. She spent the rest of the day and all of the night on a trolley in a corridor. Every hour throughout the night she was moved along, deprived of sleep and the basic provisions, including food and drink, which she would have had on a ward. What are the Government now doing to tackle the problem of delayed transfer of care, which results in fewer beds being available? Does the Minister accept that this can be done only by properly resourcing adult social care?