A staff nurse who works at a hospital in south-west England tells of her concerns of nurses being put to work in corridors.

“Some time ago the trust began pulling band 5 and 6 members of staff from wards to ‘man’ the A&E queue that formed in the corridors around the emergency department.

“This was due to the ambulance service withdrawing paramedics from staffing the queue to free them up to answer other urgent callouts. To begin with, the responsibility of staffing this queue fell to the emergency department itself.

“Around 18 months ago, random wards were asked to supply registered staff to take responsibility of staffing the queue, leaving the wards sometimes dangerously understaffed. Without any real consultation with less senior members of staff, a rotation system was devised and implemented.

“Every ward now has allocated slots of sometimes up to four hours per shift. This is not only leaving the wards short but also putting huge amounts of stress on staff. It has hit staff morale as many staff don’t want to leave their own patients that may be acutely unwell or in pain. Many nurses’ are concerned for their PIN [registration to practise] as [they] feel they could be used as a scapegoat if something were to happen in the queue or on the ward they have left.

“We have felt very vulnerable when in the queue as we find ourselves caring for patients with specialist needs, that in some cases we find are beyond our limits of competence. Many of us have raised this through incident reports and other channels but not received much, if any, feedback.

“When the rotation system was first sprung upon us. We were told that if we believed our ward/clinical area was unsafe we were to stress this to the clinical site team. But this has been met with ‘Everywhere is busy, you need to just get on with it.’ We understand what is going on within the NHS and its pressures. We’re in the thick of it – but we’re being asked to choose between the safety of our patients on the ward and those in the queue.

“Our NMC Code section 13 states many of these concerns, and if something were to happen during these periods any nurse could easily be accused of breaking the code in this sense. Our concerns when raised just never appear to be taken into consideration. It has pushed some to leave and others, including myself, to look for work elsewhere. Something I would rather not do.

“When in the queue we are expected to cannulate and take bloods in corridors while patients are in chairs, on the floor or on trolleys. This plays havoc on the back and laughs in the face of all the manual handling skills we have been taught and expected to adhere.

“Many nurses, including myself, now dread going into work in case we’re pulled from our own patients (up to eight) to then care for a number of people in the queue, which is clearly unsafe.”

As told to Denis Campbell