The way hospitals look after sick children will be one of the defining tests of the NHS this winter, the Health Secretary has said, as she ordered the health service to produce emergency plans to stop young patients being treated in corridors.
What the Health Secretary announced
Yvette Cooper used an appearance on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme to declare that child health had to become "a much greater priority for the NHS" and that she had asked NHS England to draw up urgent plans to eliminate what is known as corridor care for children.
Corridor care is the practice of treating patients in corridors, or in other temporary clinical areas, because emergency departments are too full to place them in proper beds. It has become a familiar symptom of overcrowding in hospitals across England, and the Health Secretary said children should never be subjected to it.
"No child should be treated in a corridor. No patient should be treated in a corridor," she told the programme, setting the bar she expects the service to meet.
Alongside the urgent plans, Cooper said new standards would be introduced for how children should be treated at A&E departments, so that expectations for young patients are spelled out clearly rather than left to the discretion of overstretched hospitals.
She suggested that children's services had too often been an afterthought in NHS planning. "Maternity and child care and child health, I think, has been treated as a bit of a sidecar for the National Health Service," she said. "I think it has to be a priority."
Asked whether that prioritisation would mean taking money from other parts of the NHS budget to pay for child health interventions, she did not give a direct answer but indicated that funding follows political choices. "Obviously, look, priorities, you know, investment follows," she said.
The scale of the problem
Cooper's intervention came after 16 health groups, including Age UK, Marie Curie and the Royal College of Nursing, wrote to her on Friday urging her to take action on corridor care. Their letter described the practice as fundamentally incompatible with NHS care standards and said eradicating it would require what they called "whole-system action".
The pressure on emergency departments is visible in the official data. The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments from a decision to admit to actually being admitted stood at 50,582 in September, up from 44,951 in August.
At present, those figures do not break out how many of the long-waiting patients are children. Cooper said the way the data is collected would be changed so that the number of children included in the figures is reported, making it harder for the problem to be hidden inside all-age statistics.
The government has a broader commitment to end corridor care for all patients by the end of this parliament. Making children the priority now, Cooper indicated, is about starting where the harm of undignified care is felt most acutely.
A winter expected to be more challenging than normal
Before her broadcast interview, the Health Secretary announced a £140 million package of funding to boost urgent care capacity in England as the service braces for the winter months. The money is intended to help hospitals deal with the seasonal illnesses, including flu and norovirus, that reliably pile pressure on to already stretched wards and emergency departments.
The investment will go towards 14 schemes across England, including new urgent care centres, ambulance fleets and upgrades to emergency departments, aimed at getting patients the right care more quickly and easing the bottlenecks that leave people waiting on trolleys for hours.
Cooper warned that the NHS was facing a more challenging winter than normal. Multiple heatwaves had made this the busiest summer on record for the service in England, and almost 7.3 million people attended A&E between June and August, the highest ever figure for a summer period according to NHS data.
"Winter will be more challenging for our NHS this year, after such a heavy summer," she said in a statement. "That's why we have been preparing early and investing in extra urgent care capacity to help get patients the care they need."
Health thinktank the King's Fund has warned that the service is facing what it called a "twin crisis" going into the winter, with little time between peak periods for staff and the system to recover. The sustained level of demand means hospitals are starting the cold season already running hot.
Reaction to the pledge
Health organisations welcomed the focus on children, but there were pointed questions about whether the funding would be enough. The Royal College of Nursing in England said the £140 million was "just another sticking plaster", signalling that nurses on the ground doubt a single winter package can fix pressures that have built up over years.
Shadow health secretary Damian Hinds said the government needed to act on corridor care but pressed ministers to explain where the money was coming from, keeping scrutiny on whether the announcement is genuinely new funding or a repackaging of existing budgets.
For campaigners, the letter from the 16 health groups sets the test they will use to judge the government. They want not just warm words about standards but a credible, whole-system plan to eradicate a practice they consider fundamentally at odds with what the NHS should stand for.
What happens next
The immediate step is the urgent plans Cooper has requested from NHS England, focused first on children and backed by new A&E standards for how young patients are treated. Changing the 12-hour wait data to count children separately will give the public and regulators a clearer picture of how widespread the problem is.
Whether the pledge turns into real change will depend on implementation in hospitals already under severe strain. With the broader aim of ending corridor care for all patients by the end of this parliament, ministers have set themselves a deadline that clinicians, unions and the opposition will hold them to.
FAQs
What is corridor care?
Corridor care is the term used when patients are treated in hospital corridors or other temporary clinical areas because emergency departments and wards have no available beds. It happens when demand outstrips capacity, leaving people on trolleys in hallways while they wait to be admitted. Sixteen health groups have described the practice as fundamentally incompatible with NHS care standards.
What exactly has Yvette Cooper promised?
The Health Secretary has asked NHS England to draw up urgent plans to eliminate corridor care for children as a priority, and to introduce new standards for how children are treated at A&E. She said the data on long A&E waits would be changed so the number of children is reported separately. The government also aims to end corridor care for all patients by the end of this parliament.
Where will the £140 million of funding go?
The money is earmarked for 14 schemes across England designed to boost urgent care capacity ahead of winter. They include new urgent care centres, ambulance fleets and upgrades to emergency departments. The aim is to help hospitals cope with seasonal illnesses such as flu and norovirus and to reduce the bottlenecks that leave patients waiting for hours.
Why is this winter expected to be worse than usual?
The NHS has just come through its busiest summer on record in England after multiple heatwaves, with almost 7.3 million A&E attendances between June and August. That has left staff and the system with little recovery time before winter illnesses arrive. The King's Fund has described the situation as a "twin crisis", with demand surging in both peak seasons back to back.
How has the announcement been received?
Sixteen health groups wrote to Cooper urging action, welcoming the focus on ending corridor care. But the Royal College of Nursing in England called the £140 million "just another sticking plaster", and shadow health secretary Damian Hinds pressed the government to explain where the money is coming from. The real test, campaigners say, will be whether the pledge produces a credible plan and measurable change in hospitals.
🤖 This article was rewritten by Feed and Figures' editorial AI from a report originally published by BBC. Facts and quotes are preserved from the original; the rewrite focuses on clarity and structure. For the unedited original, see the source link below.
