To think mixed sex adult wards should be banned

[roarfeckingroarr]

Please could someone in the NHS or otherwise explain why women are expected to sleep in the same room and share bathrooms with strange men they don't know while at their most vulnerable?

Is it all just down to cost / overwhelmed services or is this an intentional policy?

This is on the bank of the thread with the poor woman whose 16 year old daughter was on a ward with adult men, some drunk.

Don't get me started on men staying all night in the postnatal wards.

And other observation is in England there's a lack of respect for the staff here

That goes both ways. Plenty of staff don't show respect to their patients.

I think what a lot of us are overlooking is that we all are of an age where we have "free" (WiFi dependant) entertainment in our hand 24/7.

During my recent stay I read 4 books, watched a few films, read some forums and phoned or texted with friends.

The other younger lady on my ward was able to do the same. The ward was locked down on day 3 of my stay due to covid, the 2 other older ladies and the self described technophobe man had nobody to bring their daily papers and were left with idle chatter to entertain them all day.
There was no bay TV (thank God) but also no patient common room which used to be available in all wards 20 years ago and less. So for days these poor people were driven out of their minds with boredom.

When I'm admitted and get a side room it's like all my Christmases have come at once, I may be ill and feel like shit - but I can recover alone and sleep.

On the other side, my grandfather who after a small operation was put in a side room. He was 93 and was smart as a whip. Fully independent but now needed a care package set up. He lay alone (apart from visiting times which were very strict) for 5 months and came out fully demented though lack of simulation. If he had been in a bay and had regular interaction with a variety of people all day, I believe he would have retained his faculties.

Side rooms are not the answer for every patient, and as pp said there have been times when I've been too ill to go into one and I'm glad that I not only had nurses looking out for me but the other patients in my bay.

I'm not the one of the defence. Thats what a debate is, I do partly agree. Do you want me to lie to you? Hospitals are unsafe.

I'm not been funny but I have a real insight so perhaps my views are different to yours. Does that mean I can't understand and have empathy? For people who would like their own private rooms is that what you are saying?

I think it's you who is lacking skill to see past your own view point.

*I'm not been funny but I have a real insight so perhaps my views are
different to yours. Does that mean I can't understand and have empathy?
For people who would like their own private rooms is that what you are
saying? *

I think you are mixing me up with another poster , I don't agree everyone should have a private room.
I do think bays should be one sex if possible, obviously certain departments are different, critital care etc.

No my debate is about the entirity, the point of entry being especially bad, the public are guinuinely worried about any emergency care needed, a real fear.
There must be better models to learn from, this secrecy of keeping it within the NHS stops debate and comparison from other countries, I believe the government wants it this way.

Rather than them scrapping the NHS and selling it off I believe they want no such thing, just like the BBC, they love a funded organisation, it's just making sure that money is allocated well, not wasted or corrupted.
I've known many NHS staff complain of wastage and it appears as a buisness it's not being run as efficiently as it could be.

Surely the think tanks of this country could assess a different way, it amazes me the huge corperations and buisnesses how they adapt and cope with the logistics of their buisnesses, why arn't we speaking this way of the NHS.

Because the NHS isn't a profit-making business. It doesn't make money. It only costs money. You put money in to it and get something out of it. If you want more out of it, then you need to put more money into it. If you don't put more money into it, but still want something else out of it, then they need to take the money from somewhere else. Like reducing staff numbers (which increases burnout and the staffing crisis), reducing beds available (therefore fewer patients being treated), getting rid of services or reducing them (therefore increasing waiting lists/times), closing down hospitals, or their favourite thing at the moment - giving more responsibility to unqualified staff, so they don't have to fund more qualified staff. It's all about money.

Thankful my local hospital is All separate rooms n maternity n children's ward have pull out beds

It's not practical. If you have male and female orthopaedic wards for example, you could end up with the female ward being empty and the male being overflowing and patients not being nursed in the right place.
As long as bays are single sex and bathrooms And toilets are separate. I don't see the issue. And I have been a patient on a mixed ward. Barely saw any men.

If you want a better NHS stop voting Tory? Remember Austerity? Removal of nurse bursaries?

There simply isn't the space/wards or staff to provide single sex wards and care, staff try to accomodate but the choice is no bed or a shared ward... (i just asked my DD who works on a busy vascular ward)

UK has one of, if not the lowest number of beds and nurses/AHP's than any comparable EU country... and we voted for that, it didn't just happen because of one GE, so i wonder of those moaning the loudest... how have they voted over the years?

@Toddlerteaplease I have to confess in my trust we do have male and female orthopaedic wards. I have don't know the reason but we do.

@nannapat58 the whole hospital? I didn't think that was a thing!

@Neanov I think we used to do it but it's not practical anymore. But I'm paediatric and we are exempt from that rule.

Yes, my local hospital is the same - individual rooms except A&E cubicles whilst being assessed and ICU, HDU etc.

Once you move from A&E into Acute Receiving Wards (awaiting a bed or, perhaps, discharge after further investigation) it's individual rooms from there on in - unless it's a critical care matter e.g. ICU.

How I see the 'no beds available' issue is bed-bocking (well worn phrase) by elderly people who should easily be moved onto suitable environments. Like so many others, I firmly believe that's the key to unblocking the system.

In my youth, not yesterday, elderly people leaving hospital but not fit enough to return home on their own, transferred to council-run care homes/or NHS nursing homes (depending on need) for an appropriate period.

That option no longer exists - it's either straight home, rehab or permanent care. The temporary care option is very badly missed, imo, and appears to be the major cause of the blockages.

I fully anticipate temporary care homes to be the next 'gold-rush' amongst the government's families/cronies.

Yes built in 2010 tell a lie assessment ward not individual rooms few wards were added but separate bays male n female

@Trez1510 the beds are blocked because the patient is waiting on services such as a social worker, care homes often refuse patients I'm not sure weather years ago this was common but it's now a huge issue. There's not enough places in care homes and the mental health sector is even more scare. One of my relatives has been placed in a completely different city because that's the nearest place that can meet his needs.

In my experience, that patient would stay right where they were (A&E or theatre usually) until a male bed became available. Likely on a totally unrelated ward. The patient would be classed as an outlier and either the specialty team would do a safari ward round at some point (after their ward rounds which take hours, and if the patient jd been properly referred and accepted by them) or seen by the outlier team, either general medicine or general surgery and not properly seen by the specialty team unless urgent/dire etc. this could take days.

meanwhile the bed manager, the matrons, managers would be combing the wards looking for any potential discharges, anyone able to “sit out” of the bed, any females in a side room that no longer require it (so they could move the female into the female bay then move the male awaiting the male bed into the side room, again likely on an inappropriate ward round.

if there is no one to move out of the side room to free a bed up, and males to discharge, yes that female bed would sit empty until needed by a female, it would never (in any of the trusts I’ve worked in, 2 as a bed manager assistant) be filled with the opposite sex (unless as others said this was in ITU, CCU or A&E

Thanks. Thats why I would make a rubbish bed manager. Are sit out of bed patients inpatients or discharged and waiting for tto. Do they just have a chair in a bay with no privacy, callbell and what happens if they take a sudden turn. We had an extra bed put into each bay for a while a few years ago. I can't remember whay they were called but it stopped after inspections found they were unsafe, blocked exits, had no privacy, hampered access to nearby beds.