The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England confirmed on 11 April 2026 a targeted package for trusts with the highest rates of corridor care. Specialist Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) teams will work on site, alongside a £215.5 million programme for 40 new and expanded urgent and same day emergency care services across England. (gov.uk)
Ministers have set the goal of ending corridor care by the end of this Parliament. GIRFT teams will support leaders to improve discharge and flow, strengthen demand forecasting from local data, and back faster clinical decision‑making on the ground. (gov.uk)
To standardise reporting, NHS England published a single definition on 4 March 2026. A patient is recorded as experiencing corridor care if they spend at least 45 minutes in a clinically inappropriate area of an emergency department or of a general and acute ward. Trusts will submit these data through the UEC Daily SitRep, with national publication planned monthly from May 2026, subject to quality. (england.nhs.uk)
The 45‑minute threshold is aligned to the ambulance W45 standard; both measures are intended to move to 30 minutes in 2027/28 if progress is sustained. From 6 March the new corridor care fields replaced the previous Temporary Escalation Spaces return. (england.nhs.uk)
Operationally, NHS England has set out a Model Emergency Department to be fully operational from 2026/27. The blueprint emphasises initial assessment within 15 minutes, early senior review and front‑door streaming so that patients who do not need emergency medicine are redirected to urgent treatment centres or SDEC. A new blended payment for urgent and emergency care from 2026/27 is designed to support adoption. (england.nhs.uk)
The £215.5 million capital programme will establish 10 new urgent treatment centres, expand four UTCs, create five new SDEC services and expand 21 SDECs. First openings are due later in 2026 to bolster winter capacity; examples include sites at North Middlesex, Southampton and across University Hospitals Birmingham. (gov.uk)
Early results cited by government include reductions in ambulance handover delays and 12‑hour waits at Hull, clearance of the main corridor at Royal Blackburn in East Lancashire, and shorter very long waits with reduced length of stay at Blackpool, supported by a 24‑hour medical assessment unit. (gov.uk)
At Queen’s Hospital, Romford, new triage cut waits by 37 minutes and a frailty SDEC reduced corridor use for older patients. (gov.uk)
For trust boards, NHS England’s letter sets clear governance expectations: treat corridor care as an organisational risk, require executive approval for any planned use, record each qualifying case as an incident, chair regular discharge meetings and capture near real‑time patient and staff feedback to drive action. (england.nhs.uk)
Reducing corridor care also depends on discharge capacity. Government points to Neighbourhood Health Teams and a £4.6 billion adult social care boost, while the Neighbourhood Health Framework asks integrated care boards and health and wellbeing boards to embed neighbourhood services and reduce long community waits during 2026/27. (gov.uk)
Key deadlines for operations leads now include: data collection under the new definition from 6 March; first national publication from May 2026; and full adoption of the Model Emergency Department during 2026/27. GIRFT will continue intensive on‑the‑ground support to the 30 most challenged trusts with guidance to follow. (england.nhs.uk)