Patients are being asked to volunteer to sleep in corridors in order to free up spaces on overrun NHS wards, a new report reveals.

An anonymous survey of front-line doctors found staff are deliberately approaching the “least bad” patient in their ward to ask them to give up their bed.

The report on NHS performance in December and January by the Royal College of Physicians also reveals concerns that “panicking” managers desperate to get new patients into recently vacated beds are sidelining proper infection controls.