The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the British Medical Association (BMA) in Wales have joined forces to launch a petition to address the “alarming state of corridor care in Welsh hospitals.”

The joint petition urges the Welsh Government to take immediate action to end the practice of treating patients in corridors, chairs, waiting areas and all other inappropriate areas.

Both unions are asking the public to sign the petition after staff reported being forced to treat patients in inappropriate and undignified environments putting them at risk of significant harm.

Those reports are backed up by a Royal College of Emergency Medicine survey which showed that in the first quarter of 2025, every A&E Department in Wales recorded seeing patients in unsafe, inappropriate spaces with almost half of patients waiting for an inpatient bed.

The petition calls on the Welsh Government to take urgent action to begin recording and reporting on corridor care in Wales; pause reductions in NHS Wales hospital beds; invest in community-based care; increase the number of District Nurses; restore the proportion of NHS Wales funding in general practice to historic levels, with aspirations to increase; and prioritise prevention and early intervention.

Helen Whyley, Executive Director of RCN Wales said: “We are beyond breaking point.

“I have travelled across Wales and witnessed people in pain, confused and frightened, with no privacy, no dignity, and no proper care environment.

“Treating patients in corridors and other inappropriate areas is not nursing – it is crisis management in a system that is failing.

“Corridor care is unsafe, undignified, and unacceptable.

“The Welsh Government must act now to implement urgent and meaningful changes.”

The Welsh Government said it was “providing £200m additional funding this year to improve home care and hospital discharge timelines to address the challenges, which are not unique to Wales.”