Patients are dying in hospital corridors undetected for hours, while others suffering heart attacks are being prevented from receiving CPR because of overcrowded pavements, an explosive report into the state of the NHS has revealed.

So many patients are being cared for in hospital corridors across the UK that in some cases pregnant women are having miscarriages outside their wards, while other patients are unable to call for help because they don't have call bells and suffer "animal-like conditions", Royal School of Nursing says.

The RCN warned that patients were "frequently harmed" and in some cases died because vital equipment was not available and staff were too busy to provide adequate care for everyone.

Dr Adrian Boyle, the leader of A&E doctors in England, said the nurse testimony on which the report was based was horrific. "This is certainly a watershed moment, a line in the sand" and the government must be prompted to redouble its efforts to address this issue. question. Get the NHS working properly again.

Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: "I am shocked, shocked and saddened that we as clinicians are being forced to provide this level of care to our patients - those who turn to the NHS and its agencies for help." When employees are most vulnerable and in need. "

The RCN's 460-page report, based on 5,400 UK nurses' "harrowing" accounts of their experiences working in hospitals, sets out how:

• One nurse witnessed a "cardiac arrest occurring in a corridor with no emergency bell, emergency trolley, oxygen, defibrillator... riding on top of the patient performing CPR while everyone looked on".

• Patients receive medications, intravenous fluids, and even blood transfusions in hallways that are cold, noisy, cramped, and unable to accommodate the presence of loved ones.

The report comes as Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting was forced to defend the government's record on the NHS in an emergency debate in the House of Commons. The theme is the tremendous pressures this winter that have led to many hospitals being overwhelmed in recent weeks.

Responding to Tory attacks, Streeting told MPs corridor care "had become the norm in NHS hospitals under the previous government". It is unsafe, undignified and a cruel consequence of 14 years of NHS failure, which I am determined to consign to history. "

But, he added, while ending corridor care is the government's ambition, "I cannot and will not guarantee that no patients will be treated in corridors next year. Undoing the damage to our NHS will take time."

He promised last week to publish a plan to improve NHS emergency and emergency care "soon", which will also include GP and ambulance services and an 111 telephone consultation service.

Patients can end up stuck on chairs or trolleys in corridors - sometimes for days - after staff decide they need admission, but while they wait for a bed. Nurses say not attending A&E means they could be "forgotten" and miss out on care. Pottying them can become difficult.

A nurse in south-east England told the story of a patient who died in the corridor only to be discovered hours later.

So many patients are being treated in hallways that some hospitals are now specifically recruiting nurses to work in these spaces. For example, the Sunday Times reported that Whittington Hospital in north London last week advertised for nurses to provide "corridor care" or work as a "corridor RN (registered nurse)".

The report comes as the NHS grapples with one of the worst winter crises in its history. In recent weeks, around 20 hospital trusts in England have declared "serious incidents", admitting they were unable to meet care demand and needed help. Many have become so overcrowded that they are telling emergency room attendees not to bring loved ones with them.

This winter, England's National Health Service (NHS) has suffered record delays of at least an hour in ambulance transfers outside A&E departments, and patients in ambulances being transferred to other nearby hospitals because the intended hospital was unavailable. , an unprecedented number.

Queen's Hospital in Romford, Essex - which treats constituents in Streating - has been so overwhelmed that it has had to spend £100,000 a month to hire 19 extra nurses to care for people trapped in hospital in recent weeks. There are 50 patients in the corridor at a time. The Health Services Journal revealed this week.

Its A&E has a daily capacity of 325 patients, but at times the number exceeds double this number. Hospital bosses say the A&E is "not fit for purpose" and they need £35m to expand it. They recently put up posters advising people frustrated by the situation to lobby their local councilors about the money.

NHS staff have described the situation in recent weeks as the worst they have encountered in their careers, with influenza the most devastating of the "four pandemics" of respiratory viruses that have overwhelmed hospitals of.

"Some staff working in A&E say their working days are like those we had at the height of the pandemic," Professor Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said last week.

Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: "Patients are being harmed every day. We can now say categorically that patients are dying in this setting."

The RCN found that some nurses are giving up working in A&E or in health services altogether because of the emotional toll that working in such conditions takes.

One nurse said: "[I]ended up leaving the department because of extreme anxiety and fear that patients would die because they were physically unable to care for them safely."

Patients may become so frustrated by being stuck in the hallway that they decide to walk out of the emergency room. One nurse told how some patients "refused treatment due to their condition and discharged themselves against advice, putting them at risk of major adverse events".

Duncan Barton, England's chief nursing officer, said: "Growing demand levels have placed significant pressure on services, particularly in recent months and during one of the toughest winters the NHS has ever experienced.

“As the RCN report highlights, the impact this has on patient and staff experience should never be considered the standard to which the NHS aspires.”