Age UK study shows that older people are most likely to experience ‘corridor care’
New analysis by Age UK in 2024/25 shows there were more than 100,000 instances of over-65s waiting between one and three days in A&E after a decision to admit them had been made
In more than half of these cases these older people were aged 80 plus.
Data reveals “exponential increase” in the last six years. In 2018/19, people aged 65 plus experienced a wait of between one and three days in A&E only 1,346 times.
Age UK has already established that if an older person comes into A&E today, there is a considerable risk that they may face a wait of 12 hours or longer before a decision to admit them results in them actually moving to a hospital bed on a ward.
The data also show that older people are the population group most likely to experience long waits and so-called ‘corridor care’.
Analysis of NHS England data obtained by Age UK found that in 2024/25, there were 101,972 instances of people aged 65 plus enduring waits of between one and three days in A&E after a decision to admit them had been made.
A review of the trends over time demonstrates that this phenomenon of older people having to wait for between one and three days for a hospital bed on a ward has exploded beyond all recognition in the last few years, growing from virtually nothing to a major problem now.
Age UK’s Freedom of Information request of NHS England data related to attendances at type 1 Emergency Departments in England. The data grouped all waits between one and three days into a single category.
NHS England has said that any waits recorded above three days are likely to be the result of data quality issues and are only included as part of the number of total attendances. However, Age UK and other organisations working in this policy area have heard accounts of people waiting even longer than three days – in a few cases up to a week.
Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK, said: “At Age UK we are yet to be convinced that the Government really appreciates the seriousness of this situation and has the grip to turn it around.
“Because the good news is that it can be turned around, as some hospitals have shown.
“There is much that they can do themselves to reduce their long waits and Corridor Care, learning from the example of the best, but they can’t do it all on their own and there’s a pressing need for Government to show leadership and publish a comprehensive, costed plan.
“It certainly isn’t possible to eradicate corridor care and long waits with the stroke of a pen, it will take time and commitment, but the sooner the government makes a start the quicker we’ll restore a sense of decency in and around our A&Es, which is the least that our older population and hard-pressed hospital staff deserve.”
Responding to Age UK’s analysis of NHS England data, Rory Deighton, acute and community care director at the NHS Confederation, said: “This new analysis paints a deeply shocking picture of people’s experiences waiting for care in busy A&E departments.
“As well as being undignified, unsafe and frustrating for patients and their families, corridor care can leave NHS staff with the moral injury of being unable to provide the quality of care they would like to.
“It is also true that corridor care has gone from being a last resort during the busiest periods to an increasingly common way of managing the rising demand the NHS is facing. It is a symptom of wider system pressures, including problems with patient flow, rising demand due to an ageing population and fragility in the social care sector.
“This analysis rightly points out that older people can often face longer waits and corridor care because they usually have multiple and more complex health needs which take longer to assess and treatment.
“Health leaders continue to work on tackling the root causes of corridor care, trying to ensure flow through the system by improving patient discharge, working with local authorities to improve social care support, and prioritising vulnerable older patients at the front door through increased frailty screening. But until the challenges in social care are tackled it is likely that the practice will unfortunately continue.”
