Responding to the publication of the Urgent and emergency care plan in England, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger said:

“At the start of this year, nursing staff sounded the alarm about the critical state of emergency care with devastating testimony of patients being crammed into corridors, store cupboards, and laid in front of fire exits.

“This plan is a welcome admission from government that corridor care is unacceptable and an indication that nursing voices have been heard. The commitment in England to publish data on long waits and the prevalence of corridor care is the right thing to do. We now need to see investment put where it is needed most to relieve pressures and end corridor care across the NHS.

“This is a plan high in ambition, but low on detail of how the nursing staff needed to make this work will be supported to deliver these changes. Investment in new treatment and assessment centres, reducing the need for admission to hospital and speeding up discharge are desperately needed, but none of this can be achieved unless there is a commitment to invest in an overworked and understaffed nursing workforce.

“Those in government must recognise that their plans will also require investment in the nursing staff to deliver them. Failure to act will simply be adding even greater pressures to a profession that is already on the brink and the plans will fail before they have even begun.”

Ends