The Guardian today has: Corridor care ‘endemic’ in UK, doctors say as study reveals scale of problem

The report is based on Understanding corridor and escalation area care in 165 UK emergency departments: a multicentre cross-sectional snapshot study by the Trainee Emergency Research Network TERN in the BMJ, yesterday.

The above map has England broken up into regions but it’s clear that put together and averaged, England would have a darker shade than Scotland.

The only mention of Scotland in the report:

Hospital level surveys with variable methodology from 21 hospitals in Scotland and 15 hospitals in Wales suggest escalation area use is routine and widespread, but the UK-wide picture has not been established. https://emj.bmj.com/content/early/2025/11/29/emermed-2025-215301#DC1

There are 30 such units in Scotland and no suggestion of a sampling method in the full report so the other 9 had nothing to report and inevitably the average falls.

Participating sites – All UK type 1 EDs (those providing consultant-led, 24-hour services with full resuscitation facilities) were eligible to participate.

They decided themselves whether to take part or not so only those with corridor care bothered.

Most interesting is the Methods section in the Abstract. Readers will remember, I used to supervise PhD students, taught research methods and was a faculty research ethics chair but this made me smile:

A prospective cross-sectional point prevalence study was carried out in 165 UK EDs over five snapshots in March 2025 selected to represent a range of expected ED activity. 

Yeh, yeh, it was a self-selecting ‘squeaky wheel’ sample where the respondents did not complete standard survey documents but responded to the research team in variable ways.

I’m sorry, E, resubmit.

What the hell the BMJ is doing publishing this escapes me.