Hospital bosses have reinforced their commitment to end ‘corridor care’ at Derriford.

The Care Quality Commission highlighted the issue in its recent inspection into the hospital’s urgent and emergency services which were rated as “requiring improvement”.

They noted that high numbers of patients in the emergency department led to long waits and some patients being treated on trolleys in corridors, identifying it as a “breach of regulation”.

Inspectors said this “wasn’t appropriate for safe treatment” as “some people waited too long to be seen by a doctor” and “staff weren’t always able to fully protect people’s privacy and dignity, with sensitive conversations sometimes overheard”.

At a board meeting of University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust on Wednesday members heard that eliminating corridor care was a priority.

The feedback from family members of patients was that it was “unacceptable”.

However, some members said getting the number of patients waiting in corridors at Derriford down to zero would be “a real struggle” until the new emergency care building was up and running in a few years ‘ time.

“It’s not an easy thing to do but it’s doable,” said a senior member of the board. “It’s not a physical space issue but a cultural issue.”

Joint chief medical officer Dr Anjula Mehta agreed, saying the tolerance of corridor care needed to be lowered and hospital staff should not be accepting of it.

“We need to look at why they are in the corridor, what have we been doing and what else should we be doing,” she said.

Leaders said there was “no magic wand” but there was a drive to make changes.

NHS trusts are now required to record any instance where a patient spends 45 minutes or more in a “clinically inappropriate” area of the emergency department or on a general and acute ward, with the threshold to be reduced to 30 minutes in 2027/28.