The move is part of measures put forward by a ‘recovery board' designed to offset annual costs of around £80m associated with urgent and emergency pressures.

A report for the board said: ‘Urgent and emergency care is a major contributor to pressure in our system.

‘Data suggests more than £80m per annum costs are associated with pressures in the emergency departments of our acute hospitals, with staffing of corridor care, additional beds on hospital wards, escalation wards and capacity lost to beds being occupied by those clinically ready for discharge.

‘Building on the production of our system UEC Strategy and working closely through and with our place directors, plans will accelerate a range of initiatives that will help avoid admissions, eliminate corridor care and ambulance handover delays, address the root causes of service vulnerability and reduce the impact of acute hospital beds being lost to those clinically read for discharge.'

Sam Profitt, the ICB's deputy chief executive, said: ‘It is not great, is it, to have people sitting in corridors or not able to get out of hospital quickly enough so we have got to focus on this from a quality perspective as it is costing us an awful lot of money.'