Source · HSSIB Patient Safety Investigation
Patient care in temporary care environments
HSSIB’s introductionThis investigation explores the management of patient safety risks associated with using temporary care environments, often referred to as ‘corridor care’ and ‘temporary escalation spaces’.
Published 8 January 2026
Published
Acute
Emergency care
Patient safety themes
Indexed content
1 observation
11 learning prompts
Safety Observations
NHS regional and national organisations can improve patient safety by enhancing understanding of the use of temporary care environments across all hospital settings. This may include agreeing definitions of temporary care environments and enhanced information gathering on their use and impact on patient safety.
Learning Prompts
Does your organisation have a policy that governs the use of temporary care environments that includes potential risk mitigation strategies? Do these policies consider the severity of patients’ health conditions, the appropriateness of patients who can be assigned to a temporary care environment and what exclusion criteria may apply in assigning patients to temporary care environments?
Does your organisation use a multidisciplinary team to assist risk-based decisions on where to situate temporary care environments and make decisions on which patients are appropriate to be placed in them?
Does your organisation consider the staffing ratios needed to manage temporary care environments, including numbers, skill mix, experience and competencies?
Has your organisation nominated and assigned an individual healthcare professional to oversee temporary care environments, who is responsible for managing the completion of regular patient observations, escalating concerns, and standing back and providing leadership and supervision without being involved in direct care?
Does your organisation have aligned processes across different departments, including the availability of specialty services to help facilitate the movement of patients to the right place of care as soon as possible?
Has your organisation made adaptations to temporary care environment spaces that include having essential equipment nearby? For example, emergency call bells, communication systems, personal call bells, spaces for personal care and invasive treatments.
Does your organisation have a means of tracking individual patients who are in a temporary care environment to support their clinical observations, understanding their needs and a process by which they document the length of time they have been in the temporary care environment?
Does your organisation have a way of displaying clinical information and observations of patients in a temporary care environment to all relevant staff, so that trends or deterioration in a patient’s condition can be identified?
Does your organisation provide information to patients about the use of temporary care environments and to inform them that any patient may be placed in one if there is a clinical need to provide a space for other patients?
Does your organisation gather information about the use of temporary care environments including: the patient cohorts using temporary care environments a description of the temporary care environment how long patients have been in a temporary care environment incidents that have happened to patients while in a temporary care environment the immediate and long-term impact on patient safety and patient outcomes actions taken to reduce patient safety risks?
Does your organisation ensure that patients in temporary care environments are regularly engaged with to ensure that they have food, water, are comfortable, understand what is happening to them and what the plan is going forward?