Frontline testimony published by the Royal College of Nursing in January 2026 has brought renewed attention to the growing use of corridor care across the NHS. Practices once seen as temporary responses to pressure are increasingly described as routine, raising serious concerns about patient safety, dignity, and staff wellbeing. The evidence highlights corridor care as a systemic issue rooted in workforce shortages, limited capacity, delayed discharges, and long-standing governance gaps rather than individual clinical failure. Alongside public and professional concern, the lack of transparent national data and the impact of moral injury on staff underline the need for coordinated leadership, honest accountability, and sustained system-wide action to prevent unsafe practices from becoming normalised.

Maternity care in the NHS is facing a decisive moment, with growing evidence that repeated inquiries are no longer driving safer outcomes. In this blog, Dr Richard Dune reflects on Donna Ockenden’s warning that the system already knows what is going wrong and must now focus on action rather than further investigation. Drawing on lessons from Shrewsbury, Nottingham and Leeds, he examines how workforce shortages, gaps in training, weak leadership and cultural failures continue to undermine safety. The article explores why implementation, accountability and competence assurance must now take priority if maternity services are to deliver meaningful, lasting improvement for mothers and babies.

CQC ratings reveal the deeper systems that shape safety, culture and patient experience. In this blog, Dr Richard Dune examines why hospitals fall into an inadequate rating, what the CQC looks for when judging leadership and safety, and how services like Hull Royal Infirmary’s emergency department have begun turning fragile progress into meaningful improvement. He explores the structural issues that drive failure, from weak governance and unsafe staffing to poor IPC and medicines management, and shows how leadership, culture change and quality improvement can transform care. This analysis outlines what health and care leaders must prioritise to rebuild trust, strengthen compliance and move confidently from inadequate to good.

The Lampard Enquiry is the first statutory public investigation into deaths in NHS mental health inpatient care, examining more than 2,000 cases in Essex. In this blog, Dr Richard Dune explores how its findings are reshaping the national conversation on patient safety, governance, and accountability across the NHS. He highlights how systemic failures in leadership, culture, and oversight have driven the need for reform, and why the enquiry’s lessons must translate into lasting change through stronger governance frameworks, digital compliance systems, and compassionate, learning-driven leadership.