Corridor care returns to Royal Cornwall Hospital amid surge

Summarised from Falmouth Packet's report · Updated 5 Nov, 22:10 · Archive

Corridor care has returned to Royal Cornwall Hospital after a surge in patients forced it into a critical incident.

Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust had aimed to eliminate corridor care by the end of October. However, a surge in patients since the start of November forced the hospital into a critical incident on 5 November, meaning demand had outstripped capacity and normal operations could no longer be safely maintained.

Acting chief executive Kim O'Keeffe told the trust's board that patients are being treated in corridors across the hospital, as well as in bedded discharge lounges and day case areas. She said the trust had briefly succeeded in ending corridor care on its base wards and reducing corridor spaces in the Emergency Department to six, none of which were in use. She told the meeting: 'We were out of all of the corridor care on our wards. We had reduced our ED corridor to six, but unfortunately the weekend and the last three days means we are back in all of those areas.'

Read the report

• Critical incident brings corridor care back to Royal Cornwall HospitalThe Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) aimed to end corridor care for patients at Treliske by the end of October. However, a ‘critical incident’ means that the trust’s ambition has been scuppered.Falmouth Packet · 5 Nov, 15:10

In this story: Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust · Treliske · Kim O'Keeffe

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