Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of patients that have received clinical care in corridors or other non-designated clinical areas in NHS hospitals in the last year.

The Government recognises that the practice of providing clinical care in corridors or other non-designated areas is unacceptable and is committed to eradicating it from our National Health Service.

Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan, published in June, sets out the steps we are taking to achieve this, including the commitment to publish data on the prevalence of corridor care. NHS England has been working with trusts since 2024 to put in place new reporting arrangements related to the use of temporary escalation spaces, to drive improvement. The data quality is currently being reviewed, and we expect to publish the information shortly.