We welcomed BBC London’s health correspondent Karl Mercer (above right with patient Louis Vella) back to Queen’s Hospital on Thursday 18 July to see how our staff are dealing with increasing pressure, and our work to reduce our waiting lists.

Karl previously came to our A&E at Queen’s Hospital in January 2023 when extreme winter pressures meant some patients were being cared for in our corridors.

Increasing demand on our hospitals, including March being our busiest month ever with more than 30,000 people coming to our A&Es and urgent treatment centres, means corridor care is still necessary even in the height of summer.

Ruth Green (above right, being interviewed by Karl), Director of Nursing, said: “It’s exceptionally hard on our patients and relatives. You can apologise as often as you want but it doesn’t make it better.

“It’s the reality you see here; we’ve got 10 patients in corridors right now and that’s 10 patients too many.”

Patients on corridors are cared for on hospital beds, not trollies, and receive the same level of care and treatment as they would elsewhere.

Patient Louis Vella said of our staff: “It’s not ideal but they’re working as best they can with what they’ve got.”

Our A&E at Queen’s Hospital was built to cope with around 300 patients a day, currently, we’re seeing double those numbers.

Our Chief Executive Matthew Trainer said: “We know we have around our hospitals some of the lowest levels of GPs in London.

“Generally, pretty much every channel of healthcare open to people is seeing an increase in demand just now and lots of it is turning up here because if people can’t get to see their GP, they can’t get the community services they need, the front door of the hospital is always open.”

At our Elective Surgical Hub at King George Hospital, Karl was able to see one of the ways we’re reducing our waiting lists and working to keep patients out of A&E.

When patients face long waits for routine treatment, it can lead to A&E visits. Our hub is where we carry out planned surgery and, having recently opened two new theatres in May, we’re now able to carry out 100 additional operations each week.

Patient Pauline Rowland, who was back for her second knee replacement with us, said: “I like this hospital and I can’t fault the staff, they’re all nice and friendly.”

Thangadorai Amalesh, our Director for Surgery, added: “Our hub is not just helping patients on the waiting list, but is helping those primary care and emergency patients too.”

The BBC London visit comes just after Channel 4 News spent some time in our A&E, and spoke to Matthew about the new government’s ambition to focus more on care in the community.