NHS patients face intimate examinations in corridors and nights sleeping in chairs in beds crisis

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Patients are being squeezed onto wards, forced to have intimate examinations in front of each other and left dying in hospital corridors as nurses are forced to play “trolley tetris”, NHS staff have revealed. RCN deputy chief nurse Lynn Woolsey said in May: “We have increasing evidence from members up and down the country of patients being cared for in undesignated bed spaces, vending machines being moved out of A&E to make space for patients, two patients being put in one bed space, with one patient being asked to face the wall while a rectal exam was carried out on the other patient. We have no space, no tables, no curtains.” Among other reports to the RCN, one nurse said: “Patients on trolleys, chairs and on the floor in corridors and sharing bays. “No trust leader wants to treat patients in corridors, store cupboards or other non-clinical areas as it compromises quality of care, patient privacy and dignity.”