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.

I spent a week on a mixed ward in the summer.
I didn't even realise it was mixed until I checked out. Men were at one end in two rooms of 8 patients, women at the other end in two rooms of 8. Single rooms opposite those.
Nurses station was in the middle. It was only when I went to the nurses station when I was leaving that I realised it was 'mixed'.

@Isahlo

There you go, being all reasonable and pointing out the efficiencies the NHS does make. Shame on you!!

That's a very brave step, attempting to bring some facts/rationality to this thread. 😂

Every hospital I've been in apart from maternity hospitals have been mixed wards. Each ward specialising in a designated speciality.

Mixed bays though should not happen and on some wards this is more of a priority than others. Only once have I been on a mixed bay, this has probably got worse now due to lack of beds, but I should imagine no woman wants this.
The time I was in a mixed bay, there were 6 beds only 2 were occupied, myself (30 at the time) and a male (40) at the quiet end of the ward, so it felt quite isolated.
He was unable to move due to surgery but I think I would have felt more vunerable if he had been mobile.

I agree there seems to have been a lot more confusion within the NHS concerning the logistics of appointments, letters, just so much more effort from the patient having to constantly double check with the appointment systems.

So much time and money wasted and the staff/doctors must be noticing this more, people not turning up for appointments etc. My grown up child is under many departments, many consultants and the ammount of letters that have not arrived, emails and texts that have made them miss appointments is crazy, the wrong dates given on letters, letters sent out and they arrive at clinic and they say they don't know why that date has been sent and then sent home, they've had it all, it's been rediculous and it seems to have got worse since covid.

They do go to other specialist hospitals in another city, that one seems to be more co-ordinated so whether it's just our city, I don't know.

God Amazon wouldn't last two minutes with this sort of co-ordination.

We have a staffing crisis in the heath service in this country, for a number of reasons. It’s not being defensive in saying “this is the reason”. It is unacceptable that we have staffing crisis btw. It’s a huge contributing factor. When we say hospitals have no beds, it’s not that there is not a single bed/chair/space on a ward but there isn’t adequate staffing for patients in those beds.

I agree we need to be able to talk about the NHS without fear of hurting those within it.
Difficult conversations are needed yet if anyone outside of it speaks about the changes needed they seem to be shot down, after all it is everyones NHS isn't it?

Why are there not enough beds, over population ? Staffing levels, that seemed to change throughout the Blair years when all the nurses were made to go through university, before that it was nursing college wasn't it. Entry level seems to be higher now for nurses, but surely there must be many youngsters who want a carreer in the NHS.

You can tell by my writing that I know bugger all about the working of the NHS but I do know about being a patient and from what I'm seeing at the moment it looks dangerous, right from the start point of Gp's.

I know many elderly people who are terrified of needing help and they believe their final days are going to be total neglect. It's not good enough for the people who have paid all their lives for it.

A and E is a fearful place now, you have stories of 10 hour waits and misdiagnosis through exhausted doctors, there never seems to be enough staff in A and E's, go on wards and there seems to be more, why can't A and E's have much more staff than the rest of hospital, I mean they are taking on so much more especially as the Gp's won't see you.

It doesn't make sense any of it all the various A and E's shut down in city's relying on only one in my city, fewer staff, massive increase in population, of course it's going to go downhill.
It seems the younger generation just accept it though, they know no better, and by the time they are older, God forbid what it will be like.

It's not adjustments that are needed it's a revolution or a war to change this, this huge jugernaught that has become like a religion if you dare to critisize it, it's just what the governments want, for internal and external fighting, devide and conquer and hope that no one see's the country is being ripped off.

Nobody is trying to shut you up. Buy I am one of the posters that have agreed with why others want a private room and it's totally understandable.

If you don't work in a hospital you don't know what it is like at the same time so people are giving you factually reasons....

A fall for am elderly person isn't the same as a person is is 45 falling. There's no way these ideas would work, you would need a lot MORE HCA and NURSES. I know in Austrial they nurse totally different the nurses look after far less patients, they are more hands on and the HCA are not even allowed to do a lot of the tasks we do here in UK.

People are also living longer nowadays and there's simply not the infrastructure to cope with it. Care work has one of the highest turnovers....... let's be honest.

How many of you fancy a hospital job as a HCA???? People are not just putting up with it I voted to strike .... however do I think it will work??? (No I do not).

People are also living longer nowadays and there's simply not the
infrastructure to cope with it. Care work has one of the highest
turnovers....... let's be honest

Are they not living longer in Austraila and other parts of the world where health care systems are more efficient ?

Could we discuss which countries have the best health care in the world ?

There you go again, it's like a religion, you are doing the governments job for them, defending the NHS so no real change ever takes place.

Why should they change anything, curruption tick, fingers in pies tick, unnacountability tick, all made so much easier by the baying crowd defending atrocities.

Of course there are magnificent people in the NHS we are not denying that but there is also much that is wrong with the workings of it, not just a lack of funds.

I've worked in the NHS since I was 21. Do you not think I know how shitty the NHS can be? Do you really how dare you patronise me.

You will not force me into non logical thinking. I will not agree to private rooms because it's unsafe, hospitals are already unsafe. BUT I agree with others feeling they would like privacy and dignity.... DO YOU Understand me now?

I have said already I don't know enough about Australian hospitals however I am willing to listen to you and others if you want to explain to me?

I'm not the one upset because I can't see someone else's viewpoint.

Why have you missed off the part where I wrote Australian nurses look after less patients?

This can't be just about what suits the able bodied and I won't be speaking on foreign hospitals like I know how it works because I do not!

The patient to staff ratio works totally different. Are you aware of this?

Do your research before you start shouting the loudest. Why do you think the nurses are striking? Don't you think we are sick of it?

Nobody is agreeing with GOV. However on a public forum I can agree with SOME elements of someone else's opinion but not it all entirely. You should be able to grasp this as an adult!!!

And other observation is in England there's a lack of respect for the staff here. There's a lot of disorderly behaviour here because the hospitals are "free". There's frequent flyers which are known as people presenting as hospital with no issue at all but they just want a bed and food, drunken behaviour in A&E, people coming from Abroad to use our services and then go back to where they come from. There's so many issues here.

There's no way we could just go abroad someone where rock up, have treatment for "free" then go without paying some places literally won't even see you if you don't pay FIRST!

Trez1510 you have called posters on here fuckwits and pearl clutchers, yet you are asking for rationality?

Nobody is trying to shut you up.

@Neanov I disagree, I think this debate is being totally shut down.
Posters who have described their personal upsetting experiences of mixed wards or sexual harassment are told they are over-reacting or worse, not believed. Then there’s ’be glad you get any care at all’ and ‘come up with a better solution then’. When posters have come up with suggestions they get told it would never work, they don’t work in the NHS so they don’t understand. When posters have talked about healthcare systems in other countries they get told ‘that won’t work in this country’ or ‘why not go live there then’.

I do understand how difficult it is to work in the NHS, I work in a different public sector so I get that.
But the fact still stands that many women feel unsafe on mixed wards, for good reason.

@Neanov

Why are you so angy and defensive.

I've never said anything about private rooms for a start, and you state hospitals are unsafe, that's not comforting coming from a nurse, I don't know anything of Australian nurses and their shift patterns or ratio's to patients, why would I, but somebody shoud, maybe the nurses union has agood idea how other countries operate.

Why do all staff seem to be annoyed, conversations become aggresive all because discussion is started, you are agreeing on one hand saying it's hard and crap to work in the NHS and then in the same breath defend and wish to shut any means of understanding down.

We all should agree that changes need to be made.
Why do you think I am attacking nurses ?

And I've worked for myself for nearly forty years, try not to patronise me, I've never had a paid holiday in my life, never had sick pay, pay into my private pension, pay for health insurance, I employ people.

The nature of my job is such that I have to find new work continually for myself and the workers, it's like having a new job interview every week, sometimes days.
I was not paid during Covid, yet I still paid my workers wages, I had to get a loan to get me through, which I'll be paying off for quite some time.

There are many of us scraping by, we all have our stories but that does not alter the fact that many of us are very unhappy about the health sevice.

Are only the people who work in it only allowed to speak about it ?

Please can we move away from the narrative that only women "need protection". Men also have embarrassing health problems (and are usually much later in coming forward for treatment because of this) and equally as much don't want be in bay/ward with women.
I have worked in many hospitals and it is now uncommon for mixed bays bed managers in hospitals really go out of their way to avoid this happening except in certain cases e.g. our acute end of coronary care is mixed.

If you were in a single room with a call button that people responded to you could call.
If there were staff doing intentional rounding you’d have been noticed.
If you were high risk because of instability and placed in a room opposite the nurses station with a door open, you’d have been noticed.

Its really not about single rooms. Undoubtedly there’s the rare person better off in a Nightingale, dormitory-style ward but for most they are unsuitable, offer lesser quality care and a less safe environment. People don’t sleep communally at home. Even diabetics. Even older people. The incident rates and patient outcomes improve where there are higher numbers of single rooms.

The issue is we blame the ‘NHS’ when staff have very little control. We have far fewer beds per capita than any developed nation - fewer beds than ‘the efficient healthcare systems’ like Australia, France, Germany, Norway, Japan, anywhere else really. Their ability to provide greater privacy and protect dignity is nothing to do with efficiency. It’s to do with spending.
That ‘inefficiency’ and being ‘broken’ is not inefficiency. The NHS remains one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world. It is a political will and gross chronic underfunding of both health and adult social care as demand increases.

If we hadn’t closed the majority of mental health beds but had invested in better psychiatric hospitals (and trained enough staff) our emergency departments would not be full of people in crisis.
If we’d not sold off all our local authority care homes our frail elderly might not be filling beds in acute hospitals. If they received decent care packages rather than two half hour visits, they might be less likely to need rushing to hospitals with fractures, cuts, dehydration, UTIs and chest infections.

As a society we’ve voted for austerity and decimation of the public sector. We are reaping the effects. Lower taxation comes at a cost. The political thrift impacts most on the most vulnerable. As a nation we’ve made the choice not to retain valuable healthcare workers, to discourage European staff from working in the U.K., to allow our elderly to languish uncared for and isolated in cold homes and to drive GPs elsewhere.

What speciality is your ward, where would the patient needing a bed be nursed instead, what would happen if the bed manager and doctor insisted they needed a bed because they were unstable or needed specialist nursing and were at risk of severe deterioration or death.

What comes across from your posts repeatedly is a lack of respect for the NHS customers who fund the services (ie patients) and a dismissal of any other options or possibilities that things can be better. I can quite believe you are part of the system, this is exactly the attitude in too much of the NHS management layers - that the Almighty NHS cannot learn from anyone else, not even other trusts or services.

The thrust of your argument throughout this thread is that mixed wards, mixed bays and facilities either don't happen or that they do happen and we just have to lump it because that is what works for the system. And if a few women get abused or assaulted along the way, well its not your problem.
This isn't just about funding either, as this was a problem at times of much higher spending over recent decades.

Other countries with state backed health care do manage better privacy without compromising care - you dismiss that and sneerily ask how they do it. My question to you is why are you not seeking out that information to make your service better? Instead of sticking with antiquated and disjointed processes which waste huge amounts of money every year.

And that is before we even get onto the fact that your posiiton is basically that the NHS regards the safety, privacy and dignity of women as an "optional extra".

If you were in a single room with no alarm/monitoring to call for help that is still poor care.

What speciality is your ward, where would the patient needing a bed be nursed instead, what would happen if the bed manager and doctor insisted they needed a bed because they were unstable or needed specialist nursing and were at risk of severe deterioration or death.

@HappyHamsters

Speciality is elderly rehab. The patient needing the bed would not come to our ward. Nobody would insist the bed is needed as we never mix sexes within bays. They would just stay where they are.

^ this a million times over.
With regard to single rooms they are great for many but for the elderly who are waiting for packages of care/care home placement often for months even years (I have colleague who has 5 patients on their ward who've been waiting for over 2 years) they can be very isolating. In England often patients pay for the TV and its quite expensive especially month in month out, some elderly may not have relatives who are able or willing to stump up for the the TV long term. When I started nursing there was a day room with a TV etc and often communal dinning area but now when every space is required (for extra beds) and infection control is a concern these things rarely exist.

I can understand elderly rehab not wanting mixed sex bays, it's not the same as an acute area. There are not enough hospital beds, community beds, carehome places, long stay elderly and MH units, and I do wonder if hospitals will eventually become acute/surgical/maternity only with wards like rehab used in the community instead. There are thousands of patients having rehab, waiting for social care, on acute wards which results in acute patients not getting suitable beds, its such a mess and has been going on for decades since at least the 80s with hospital closures and "care in the community".

In my hospital nearly 45% of beds are filled with elderly waiting for a care package/care homes, the elderly rehab ward has only 34 beds. We also have four cottage hospitals in this region again full to bursting. My colleague who runs a "rehab ward" has a waiting list as long as you arm. Even if there was space which there isn't there are no staff to open up more community hospitals/rehab wards. The demographics show that the vast majority of those in hospital are elderly we cant ignore this, the elderly are the main users of the NHS and often are overlooked and sadly often don't have a voice. Yes I agree its nice to be in a side room I saying this as someone who has been an inpatients but at the end of the day when beds money and staffing have gone beyond a crisis point we cannot cater for everyone, we need to meet the needs both physical and emotional of our main users. Im well into my middle age I've never stayed in hospital more than a few days, I could go home becuase I had family around, I didnt have to wait for a dossett box, a package of care or adaptaions to my house, even the middle aged recover quicker, most of my friends of similar age have never been an inpatient, the reality is that the vast majority patients on wards are 80 + and are likely to be in for a considerable time for a whole raft pf reasons, single rooms are isolating and especially very bad for those with dementia etc where mental stimulation is so important, patients experience more falls in single rooms, and can become unwell unnoticed.

We need to be realistic the NHS in its current state can only be meeting the needs of the majority not a the complaining vocal minority.
Just to say again I'm not advocating mixed sex wards (except in special cases) but I know my views on everyone being in a single room are shared by many of my colleagues.