Enter and view: Southport Hospital - corridor care

Healthwatch Sefton undertook an Enter and View visit to the Emergency Department at Southport Hospital on 31 March 2026 as part of a wider review of corridor care across Cheshire and Merseyside. The visit focused on the safety, dignity and experience of patients being cared for in corridor and temporary escalation spaces. Overall, patients spoke very positively about staff, consistently describing them as kind, compassionate and professional despite significant operational pressures. 

Healthwatch found that staffing levels were appropriate on the day, patients were regularly monitored and medications were managed safely. Patients reported that their basic care needs, including pain relief and assistance with toileting, were being met. However, corridor care presented clear challenges, with patients reporting difficulties sleeping due to noise and activity, limited privacy, uncertainty about their care plans and long periods waiting in corridor spaces, sometimes exceeding 16 to 24 hours. 

Additional concerns included call bells being difficult for some patients to reach, limited access to personal belongings, a lack of suitable surfaces for eating and drinking, and feelings of exposure or loss of dignity in open care environments. Patients cared for in temporary escalation spaces also reported loneliness, limited facilities and uncertainty about next steps in their treatment. 

Overall, Healthwatch concluded that while staff were delivering compassionate care under difficult circumstances, corridor environments were not ideal for maintaining privacy, dignity and patient comfort. Recommendations focused on improving communication, accessibility of call bells, nutrition and hydration support, privacy measures, access to belongings and reducing the impact of corridor care on vulnerable patients. The Trust accepted many of the findings and reiterated its ambition to eliminate corridor care over the following 12 months.