Nurses say patients are dying in corridors and pregnant women are having abortions in side rooms as overcrowded hospitals struggle to cope.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said evidence provided by more than 5,000 of its members across the UK this winter also showed that cupboards, car parks, bathrooms and nursing stations were being turned into temporary areas for patients. being given.

Nurses warned that such practices put patients at risk because staff were unable to access vital equipment such as oxygen, heart monitors and suction equipment, and did not have the time and space to provide CPR.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he agreed the problems should not be tolerated, but placed blame on the previous government.

However, RCN general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger said the findings should act as a “wake up call” for Labour.

“Patients are being stripped of their dignity and their lives are being put at risk,” he said.

Professor Ranger said increased investment was needed and “questions need to be asked” about whether this Government has done enough to deal with the pressures seen over the winter.

More than 20 NHS trusts declared serious incidents last week, as high levels of flu and bad weather put huge pressure on hospitals.

Professor Ranger said corridor care, as it has become known, is becoming commonplace across the UK and he warned that without action it would derail the Government’s key priority of reducing waiting lists for non-urgent care in England. Will create obstacles.

RCN published more than 400 pages of testimony Asked your members about the problems they were seeing.

These include:

• People having cardiac arrest in corridors or chambers that are blocked by patients on trolleys, delaying life-saving CPR
• Others are dying on trolleys and chairs in waiting rooms and one nurse saying the NHS is “no better” than the developing world
• Women having abortions in adjacent rooms, which nurses say was not only troublesome for patients, but also made it difficult to monitor the situation.
• An incontinent, frail patient suffering from dementia having to change clothes next to a vending machine in the corridor
• Cases where 20 to 30 patients have been left in corridors under the care of one nurse and health care assistant
• Elderly patients had to sit on chairs for days and spend hours on beds in corridors in dirty clothes

“Now we have permanent corridor care,” said one nurse. “Patients don’t get the respect and care they should. Frankly, it breaks my heart.”

Another nurse, who normally works in critical care but was redeployed to A&E, said: “I felt embarrassed to work for the NHS and for the first time, I saw that it was broken. Had happened.

“I never thought in my 30-year career that this would become a ‘norm’ but it has.”