Hospital patients must never be hidden away to disguise Britain’s A&E crisis

An 81-year-old woman with terminal cancer, forced to sleep on chairs in a hospital storeroom for 48 hours. Few stories expose the indignity of Britain’s A&E crisis more painfully.Pam Smith deserved compassion, comfort and a proper bed. Instead, she says she felt abandoned.Now MPs have heard disturbing allegations that hospitals are hiding patients on plastic chairs to keep them out of official corridor-care figures.If true, it is an appalling betrayal of patients already suffering enough.Labour deserves recognition for finally measuring corridor care after years of deterioration under the Conservatives. Its commitment to ending the practice is welcome.But figures become meaningless if hospitals can improve them simply by moving patients out of sight.Doctors and nurses are working under intolerable pressure, while failures in social care leave hospital beds occupied by people fit for discharge.The Government must confront those problems urgently.Because patients deserve proper treatment, dignity and compassion. They should never become inconvenient statistics to be hidden away.