NHS staff working in Accident and Emergency departments are reportedly avoiding eye contact with patients because they feel 'embarrassed' by the substandard level of care being provided, Members of Parliament were told today. The Health and Social Care Committee heard this alarming claim as senior clinicians issued stark warnings about a deepening crisis within emergency departments across England.
Corridor Care and Unsafe Conditions
Demand for emergency treatment has escalated to such an intense level that some patients are now being treated in hospital corridors. Disturbing reports include dying individuals left parked outside toilets or positioned beside nurses' stations. A dossier of evidence submitted to MPs by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine highlighted the immense pressure facing A&E units, with one senior doctor quoted as saying: 'I don't think I can go back and do another shift, because I am embarrassed at the care we are delivering.'
Overcrowding and Safety Concerns
The committee also learned that a vast majority of emergency medicine clinical leaders describe overcrowding as a daily occurrence. More than half of the 80 consultants surveyed from emergency departments across England stated that their unit was unsafe for both patients and staff. Dr Ian Higginson, president of the RCEM, presented evidence to MPs, remarking: 'Emergency departments have become the safety valve rather than the safety net.'
Dr Higginson elaborated: 'Our staff feel that they're left to fend for themselves, with poor engagement throughout the system, and they feel disillusioned because it has been going on for so long with little mitigation.'
Loss of Hope Among Nursing Staff
Echoing these grave concerns, Professor Nicola Ranger, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, informed the committee that her organisation had collected over 5,000 'harrowing' testimonies from nurses during the Christmas and New Year period. 'The thing that worries me most is that they are losing hope,' she said.
Professor Ranger continued: 'I think there is a sense of embarrassment. Our staff are genuinely trying but I was speaking to a patient last week who said they felt staff couldn't even look them in the eye. Those are symptoms of staff who are head-down because they feel upset and ashamed.'
She emphasised that when patients struggle to get a nurse to make eye contact, it signifies a critical breakdown in a profession built on safety, vigilance, and care. 'This is an emergency, we cannot get to the place where people don't feel proud of what they're doing,' she added.
Emotional Toll and National Emergency
Dr Rosy Benneyworth told MPs that healthcare professionals across the system are experiencing 'a lot of negative emotions around shame, guilt and anger'. She warned that corridor care is spreading beyond emergency departments and described the situation as approaching a 'national emergency'.
Mortality Figures and Data Manipulation
According to estimates from the RCEM, approximately 16,600 people in England die each year as a direct result of delays in accessing A&E care or obtaining a bed on a ward. There are additional concerns that official figures may not fully capture the scale of the problem, as patients left waiting in ambulances often fall outside corridor care statistics.
Professor Ranger highlighted how hospitals can manipulate performance figures by moving patients around the system. 'I've been to a hospital where they were telling me the 45 minute handover delay ambulance was brilliant,' she recounted. 'What they didn't tell me was there were five extra patients stuck on the ward in order to achieve that. You can play all of the system off each other, which is why it will come down to culture.'
She concluded: 'The data can be played off to say whatever you want, but we've got to make this about people and patients, and that requires culture and leadership.'
