What do you wear in hospital in the UK

[OversharingTapir]

I'm in hospital in Malaysia and have a very fetching pink sarong and purple/white polka dot top.

My dad thought that in the UK you can wear your own clothes in hospital but I thought they made you wear a gown?

They don't make you wear a gown unless you're going for surgery/certain scans or if you have a catheter and they need to be able to access places that clothes would make too difficult.

The gowns are very basic but the fabric is decent cotton with a very dull (and usually faded) pattern on it.

Your hospital outfit sounds much nicer! Sorry that you're in hospital though.

In the UK you wear a gown while you’re undergoing a procedure.
But back on the ward, you wear your own clothes (if you have them- they won’t leave you with nothing to wear!)

In our local hospital, getting up and dressed and mobile is very much pushed/encouraged - elderly patients in particular can lose condition quickly if they are immobile in bed, and hospital gowns aren’t the most modest garment to be walking round in.

Haha I'll have to tell my dad he was right then!

I agree gowns are not modest. I remember being in hospital with appendicitis years ago and wearing a gown the whole time and it was a pain trying not to expose my bum!

@BeQuirkyJadeBird sorry, did I ruffle your feathers somehow?!

@OversharingTapir
Well personally I don't think you can beat the gown in the UK. The ties at the back are either not there or not enough of them so you show your butt to the world. Classy!

In some countries they do. In some parts of the US you can buy your own personal maternity gown to take to hospital to give birth in apparently they encourage you to change into it when you check in in labour (not only if you're having a planned c-section).

Own clothes in the UK and Germany which is the only two countries I've stayed overnight in hospitals.

I wear trackies and t shirt mostly.

You change into a gown just before surgery.

The idea seems to be that you don't end up with loads of dirty laundry to take home.

Perhaps it's a holdover from older, more patriarchal societies where women typically would do all of the laundry so you couldn't expect your husband to take it home and do it for you?

I’ve left the ward environment now but we always encouraged patients to wear their own clothes if they had them. ‘Pyjama paralysis’ is a very real thing!