In a letter to trust chief executives, NHSE announced corridor care will be defined as spending at least 45 minutes in a clinically inappropriate area of an emergency department or general and acute ward.

NHSE said the 45-minute threshold and W45 protocol for ambulances were both targeted to fall to 30 minutes in 2027/28, once demonstrable progress has been made.

The commitment to collect and publish hospital data on corridor care was welcomed by Healthwatch England.

Rebecca Curtayne, acting head of policy, public affairs and research, said ‘if you don't measure the scale of the problem, you can't know how to tackle it and track improvements'.

Curtayne also welcomed actions set out to tackle the practice, including Healthwatch England's recommendation for trust leaders to ‘walk the corridors' out of hours to see patients and staff experiences first hand.

Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN general secretary and chief executive, welcomed the new definition of corridor care as a step towards being able to ‘move us closer to determining the scale of this crisis'.

Ranger added: ‘We're pleased that NHS England has engaged and agreed to some of the actions put forward by the corridor care coalition. Together we need to start resetting the standards in our hospitals. These actions rightly place new expectations on trust leaders to own the corridor care crisis, put in place measures within their control to ease pressure, and recognise it as a risk to patients and staff by formally recording and reporting corridor care.'