The Health and Social Care Committee this morning heard how A&E patients were being cared for on chairs and in reception areas and cupboards.

Dr Ian Higginson, president, Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said: ‘It's been progressively getting worse.

‘We cannot understand why it hasn't got the focus it deserves because its actively killing patients and actively harming staff.'

Dr Higginson said 16,000 patients were dying each year in association with long waits in emergency departments.

An RCEM survey of clinical leads published today found 96% thought the situation was unsustainable in the long term, with 44% saying things were unsustainable in the short term and the long term.

The majority of clinical leads (61%) said they thought the Government did not understand the problems in emergency medicine and were not taking the right steps to address them.

‘At the moment we tend to value elective care and other forms over emergency care,' Higginson said.

‘No single solution'

When asked if sorting out social care would solve the issue, Higginson said: ‘There's no one single solution.

‘Undoubtedly discharge from hospital into social care is one part of the problem but also the way hospitals work, the efficiency with which they work, the number of beds available are other factors.'

Professor Nicola Ranger, general secretary and chief executive, Royal College of Nursing, welcomed the Government's publication of a definition of corridor care and pledge to start to publish data in May.

She said moving discharge to access back into the community would be one way of easing pressures.

Panellists agreed corridor care had to be owned throughout organisations with changing leadership and culture key.

Karin Smyth, minister for secondary care, said: ‘We are very clear that his is unacceptable, that the phrase "normalised" is not normalised and that is why the secretary of state has committed see the of the practice at the end of the current Parliament.'

Professor Tim Briggs, national director for clinical improvement and elective recovery and chair, Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) Programme, NHS England, said new guidance on improving patient flow would have a ‘big impact'.

NHS England also plans to publish a new urgent and emergency strategy in the coming months.

The panel also gave examples of trusts such as Queen's Hospital in Ilford which had eliminated corridor care.

Kelly McGovern, chief nursing officer, shared how West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust had gone from being one of the worst country for corridor care to the top five by owning it as a shared risk and making flow and values its priority.