Written question WQ99989

The Welsh Government is clear that patients should be cared for in appropriate clinical environments, with privacy, dignity and safety maintained. Corridor care is not an acceptable or routine model of care.

There is no single national timescale for eliminating corridor care because it reflects pressures across the whole health and care system, including primary care access, patient flow, discharge delays, and capacity in acute, community and social care services.

However, I expect NHS organisations to take all reasonable steps to prevent corridor care, minimise the time patients spend in inappropriate environments, and reduce associated risks where pressures arise.

Health boards are expected to prioritise actions that safely prevent avoidable emergency department attendances and hospital admissions, improve acute hospital flow, deliver timely discharge without delay, strengthen step-down and community provision, and work with local authority and social care partners to release capacity and maintain safe care.

The Integrated Community Care System blueprint provides the national framework for shifting care safely closer to home, coordinated and delivered through Regional Partnership Boards.

The £30 million Pathways of Care transformation grant to local authorities is supporting this by expanding community and intermediate care, strengthening prevention and early intervention, reducing avoidable admissions, and helping people leave hospital safely when they are ready.

I expect all regions to demonstrate measurable progress through delivery of their improvement plans. NHS Performance and Improvement and the National Office of Care and Support are supporting and challenging organisations on patient flow and discharge productivity, with a focus on the most pressured parts of the system.

I have also commissioned a national NHS Wales Corridor Care Action Group to develop a consistent all-Wales approach to defining, measuring and reporting corridor care. This will improve transparency, strengthen accountability and ensure the impact on patients, families and staff is better understood.

The Group has been asked to develop recommendations at pace to support NHS Wales during the forthcoming winter period and to inform future performance, quality and experience reporting within emergency and acute care services.

In the interim, I expect health boards to use operational data and oversight systems, including information on the prevalence of corridor care, to support safe decisions on the use of acute and community capacity.

I will continue to hold NHS leaders to account for demonstrable progress across the full urgent and emergency care pathway, ensuring that reducing risk, improving flow and preventing corridor care remain clear system priorities.