Hospital bed to hire or buy?

To echo what others have said- the hospital should be assessing your dad and organising the appropriate bed, mattress, pressure mattress, hoist, commode, slide sheets/board or whatever is needed. I would cancel the hired bed ASAP!

I'd ask your mum to add you as a contact for the hospital NOK list and ask to speak to the OT, discharge planner and/or ward sister where he is. He should NOT be discharged to a rented bed IMO.

Even IF it suited his needs perfectly (which is unlikely) you could be stuck paying the fees for months/years on end until the community team get around to providing one- IF they ever do!!!

@tobee Oh that’s a shame as I have my mums with fancy air flow mattress etc and the company that supplied it have gone bust so won’t collect it.

Keep on at the OT and they should be able to help 🤞🏻

Surrey uses Millbrook to supply and fit equipment.

The hospital should provide one. Round here it's Millbrook who source and deliver aids at home.

Does your dad lack capacity to make his own decisions @tobee ? If so does anyone have poa for health?

When my DM broke her hip the OH provided us with a hospital bed, perching stools, a high back chair, commode, walking frames and a three wheel walker for outside. I must admit I was very surprised at the time. Two years on and DM has made a good recovery but we’ve still had to keep a couple of things but most have been returned. I hope you get this sorted Op. I really feel for you, it must be a huge worry.

Do you have power of attorney for their health issues? You need to be in a position where you are kept in the loop.

Social care/OT provided everything my parent needed for their home care - all sourced, delivered and set up by them.

Try and speak to someone on the ward tomorrow, ideally the OT directly and get to the bottom of it.
If he needs a hospital bed (each county will have their own criteria but likely if he has a significant pressure sore or is recieving care on the bed and 'bed bound') it should be provided for discharge. However, NRS, a leading equipment provider went bust last month and this has caused chaos so this may be why they do not have one to provide.
Many people unfortunately believe their family member 'needs' a hospital bed when they don't meet the criteria.
Hope you managed to get to the bottom of it and get him home soon, it must all be so stressful to organise from a distance.

I suspect your mum is down as next of kin / first contact. They can therefore only speak with her. Your dad needs to be the one who says who to speak to, presuming he has capacity. They don’t have time to speak with all family members so as a family you need to decide who this is. But please be
mindful on how your mum may feel if it’s not her. I agree with OP. Totally understand your frustrations but it sounds like you haven’t really been there to have the discussions and a lot is being based on second or third hand information. By all means sit with your dad and the OT / discharge team to ask questions but please be kind. Everyone is doing their best in a very broken system.

Are they anywhere near Oxford OP?

I’d wait to ‘read the riot act’ until you actually know what is going on/is planned. And even then ‘riot acts’ aren’t helpful.

As you say it’s all 3rd hand & may be inaccurate.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had an older patient decline services/ state that their daughter has arranged x and y, or that you’re not to be disturbed on holiday and speak to their wife (ignoring their deafness)
with a patient who has capacity that can’t be overruled - even if frustrating to you, the clinician and everyone else.

Could be as simple as - when discharge comes you’ll need a bed - but discharge not yet suitable. Or it could be ‘an electric bed might help x/y but not nhs eligible’ or’we’ve referred to social work it might take a while to get to the top of the list’

or it might be a giant mess. You won’t know until tomorrow at least.

Medequip have profile beds and the mattresses on their website.

I know you mean well @tobee but you need the right bed and mattress for each individual’s needs. These can also change over time so may need to be changed.

It will all need servicing too.

Please go back to the hospital team and ascertain whether the bed is needed for health needs or socials needs. This will decide who organises and funds it (health or social services).

Just echoing what others have said. The NHS (via the hospital discharge team) should provide a bed , plus whatever else he needs. It’s unsafe to discharge him otherwise. They are usually pretty quick to do this, because they are very keen to discharge patients as soon as they possibly can, as someone else needs that bed. Your family might be in a position to buy one yourselves, but millions aren’t and it isn’t expected that you will.

You need a OH assessment of his home, to see what else he might need - loo seat, grab rails, walker, hoist etc etc etc. Which is provided by the NHS.

He shouldn't be coming home without that done, it's not a safe discharge.

If that's been done and they're saying they won't provide the equipment he needs, but are discharging him anyway, then that's a whole other conversation. Is that what's happened?

Or have they said he's ready for discharge, but they can't organise the bed right now, and won't discharge without it, so you've sourced one to get him home ASAP?

Or some other scenario?

If your dad needs it for nursing needs the nurses on the ward should be arranging it. If it’s for mobility needs eg. To aid transfers or of bed, then it will fall on the OT to arrange. The problem of hiring one is what are you going to do when the actual one arrives (presuming it’s on order). It can prove tricky with space, poor transfers etc. Who is saying he needs a hospital bed and have they explained why?

Sorry can't help on price.

Dad's got an electric bed which my Mum was given by a friend and it was hardly used - then Mum only used it for 2 nights :( We've moved it to our house for Dad who uses it all the time now - really useful when his carers put him to bed early so he can sit up and watch TV and we can lower it later on. Its not got any special pressure mattress though.

Dad's been in hospital with sepsis and we were never offered a bed when he came home as part of the reablement package. They did give us toilet frames for both toilets, two walking frames for upstairs and down, and a shower/sink perch. All really useful and I'd recommend.

My Mum also received a commode for free which we kept and which Dad has used in the past when he's needed it. Luckily that was only temporary.

He also needs a wheelchair for outside trips. We purchased that.

Good luck. Its a brave new world.

As for delaying discharge that didn't happen to Dad. I'd asked them for an assessment of his needs because he had significantly deteriorated from pre sepsis. I though I was waiting for that and for him to have physio to walk and do stairs but went in one day to find all the equipment at the bottom of his bed to bring home and they'd arranged a care package starting 2 days later!

This did, as others say, have the advantage of getting him out of hospital - but im not sure now whether discharge was really thought through properly with missing new medication, unstable stats, incorrect TEP and a new infection. We've been left to pick up the loose ends.

And reading this thread has me wondering if we should also have a special mattress topper as he came out with a red pressure sore risk score! Thanks for flagging.

It's not just the bed, he will also need a mattress suitable for his needs, the hospital need to tell you what level, his pressure areas, continence, mobility, height, weight are all important when ordering a mattress.