Overcrowded hospitals: managing airborne risk

Corridor care is increasingly being used across the NHS as hospitals manage sustained capacity pressures, raising important questions about environmental and airborne infection risk in non-clinical spaces. Here, Barry Paterson, Chartered Engineer and founder of Germicidal UV Ltd (GUV), draws on ventilation standards, outbreak evidence, and practical healthcare experience to explore how clean air delivery and supplementary air cleaning can help mitigate shared air risk, and argues that airborne infection control in corridor care is not optional, but a systems-based environmental challenge that must be addressed alongside clinical practice.

Across the NHS, corridor care has become a visible consequence of sustained capacity pressures. Patients are increasingly treated in corridors, waiting areas and other non-clinical spaces when emergency departments and wards exceed capacity.

The CQC has issued guidance to inspectors regarding care delivered in non-clinical spaces, reinforcing that corridor care must not become normalised and that trusts are expected to mitigate associated risks.¹ This creates a regulatory expectation: when non-standard spaces are used for care, environmental and infection risks must be assessed and managed.