Ending hospital corridor care for children will be prioritised in England, Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has said, as the government announced £140m for urgent care ahead of a winter expected to place unusually heavy demands on the NHS.

Cooper told the BBC on Sunday that she had asked the health service to draw up urgent plans to accelerate the change. New standards for children’s care in accident and emergency departments are planned, and information about patients treated in corridors will be collected by age for the first time.

The announcement builds on an existing government commitment to end corridor care for all patients by the end of this parliament. It does not establish a separate completion date for children. The funding and standards concern England’s NHS; they should not be read as an allocation to Scotland’s separately administered health service.

Family’s loss puts dignity in focus

Cooper was speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, which highlighted the death of two-year-old Finlay Roberts in 2024 after he spent his final hours in an A&E corridor in north London. His parents described being moved into a room with a bed before returning to the corridor.

Finlay’s mother, Liz Roberts, said the practice deprived people of dignity when they were most vulnerable. His father, David, described a terrible mess. Cooper apologised to them on behalf of the NHS and said that neither children nor other patients should be treated in a corridor.

Whittington Health NHS Trust extended its condolences to the family. It said emergency care continued to experience periods of exceptional demand and that some patients could receive treatment in temporary clinical areas, including corridors. Staff worked to provide safe, compassionate care in extremely challenging conditions, the trust said.

Corridor care describes treatment or waiting in corridors, waiting rooms and other spaces when an appropriate clinical area is unavailable. The new age-based recording would make children’s experience more visible, but the reports did not give a current national count of children affected or detailed wording for the proposed standards.

Fourteen schemes before winter

The £140m will support 14 schemes across England, including urgent care centres, ambulance fleets and emergency-department upgrades. Cooper said preparations had begun in July and that extra capacity was intended to help patients get the care they needed during seasonal illness pressures.

Almost 7.3 million people attended A&E between June and August, the highest summer total in NHS figures. Heatwaves increased demand before services had entered the period when flu, norovirus and other respiratory illnesses typically put additional pressure on hospitals and staff.

The King’s Fund warned of a twin crisis, with little recovery time between summer and winter peaks. Professor Frankie Swords, the NHS national medical director, had already described ominous signs of pressure, with more patients arriving with flu and respiratory viruses than usual for the time of year.

Emma Rowland, NHS England’s executive director for performance and delivery, said investment in same-day emergency care and urgent treatment centres would help patients receive appropriate care while reducing pressure on emergency departments. NHS leaders also urged eligible people to obtain vaccinations against flu and other winter viruses.

Nurses question staffing capacity

The Royal College of Nursing welcomed the additional money in the short term but warned that it risked becoming another sticking plaster. Patricia Marquis, its executive director for England, said the nursing workforce was already short of staff and running on empty as winter approached.

Health organisations including Age UK, Marie Curie and the nursing college wrote to Cooper on Friday, urging whole-system action against corridor care. Shadow health secretary Damian Hinds said the government needed to act but asked it to explain where the extra money would come from.

Cooper also reaffirmed the manifesto aim for 92% of patients to start treatment within 18 weeks by 2029. The latest England figures recorded 7.37 million outstanding treatments relating to 6.24 million patients at the end of August. Those planned-treatment figures are distinct from A&E attendance totals and from the still-unpublished age breakdown of corridor care.