Aibu to think that hospitals should do more to promote sleep for patients on wards

[Twistandshout77]

The nhs seems stuck in a dark age that doesn't recognise the value of sleep and comfort on patients. How is anyone supposed to recover whilst getting next to no sleep on busy, noisy, hot/cold wards with bright lights, staff talking and creaky metal bin lids banging? I'm just back from a 2 night stay with my LO in which I averaged 3 hours broken sleep a night - it wasn't me that's sick but I came out feeling so! God knows how anyone with a serious illness manages. There's SO much that could be done - and not that expensively. I'm sure they'd see much faster recovery rates and therefore savings too if there was a focus on it. Aibu to think the NHS needs to revolutionise its attitude towards sleep for inpatients? What can I do to start a campaign?!

@spangles1963 yy, exactly this x100!

I meant your first post but yy to the second one too

i do actually think wards should keep stocks of eye masks and ear plugs on hand - tricky on children's wards though as they can be a bit of choking hazard to have about everywhere with young children
I very clearly remember the night they said they needed to do hourly observations on my child and I cried. The same ward I wasn't allowed to rest in day either as parent beds had to be up during day - I was 3 weeks postpartum and had to sit on a hard wooden chair all day dripping with tiredness unable to swap with my partner to get a bit of rest as breastfeeding and also he had to work

The ward in was in switched all the central tvs off at 9pm - quite right, but now you need to have nurses and sisters empowered to require tablets etc off at the same time, and to lock them away if not switched off.

The bins crash when the soft close has broken - again a sister needs to put the broken ones in the corridor and bollock the estates manager.

Staff with squeaky shoes should be sent home /pay docked until they wear something suitable (obviously warning prior to starting work).

Nurses used to work with torches. Head torch? Not all jobs possible this way but a hell of a lot will be.

Agree totally re social chats at full volume at 2 am and an understanding of sundown ingredients and other dementia behaviours at night.

It's really important that colleagues lead the way -refusing to answer the social chats until the staff room door is closed, sharing information on quiet shoes, just refusing to accept obviously crap care.

Would it help perhaps if night nursing were a recognised specialism?

I remember getting round to clerking in patients in the middle of the night as I'd dealt with emergencies earlier on. It's awful for everyone but sometimes inevitable.

I agree.

I was admitted last year with suspected pneumonia. It was so noisy, bright and UNBEARABLE, it made me worse.

Demented with tiredness, I discharged myself at 3am.

I've been in two different wards recently due to hypermeisis (gynae when I was still in the early stages of pregnancy and then antenatal).

The gynae ward was awful for sleep. Lights were bright, staff were talking really loudly and the buzzer was obnoxiously loud.

However, antenatal was fab. The staff made a really effort to keep things quiet and peaceful and I managed to sleep most of the night. The only real noise that disturbed me was the IV beeping when my fluids finished and that can hardly be helped.

Yanbu to a degree.

I'm an RMN in an in patient mental health setting and I work really hard or minimise noise, some of my colleagues not so much. I did nights for 13 years and it is no fun at night for patients trying to sleep in a noisy ward. Emergency situations happen and we can't prevent that but I always try to close off corridors and keep at the forefront of my mind that others need to sleep.

Sleep is so important for recovery. Of course some noise can't be prevented, but things like doors closing loudly, bins closing noisily and staff talking loudly can be limited with a little bit of thought.

A lot of noise is just lack of consideration. I've spent years reminding people to hold the door as it closes, not let their keys jangle as they walk the corridors, don't talk loudly in the corridors. Even I can't stand unnecessary noise and I'm paid to be awake!

After having DD I was in a week. I remember some stupid bitch face timing everyone she knew until about 3am. They did obs on me every 4 hours, 24 hours a day even though I was fine and only there for DD. I was so annoyed to be woken up to have my blood pressure taken having FINALLY got to sleep. We had snoring husbands there, the baby next to me screaming all night and it's mum crying all night because it wouldn't stop screaming. I was a complete wreck by the time I got out of there. I'm praying for this one to arrive at term and healthy and that we can get out asap.

I do agree op , though I don't really know what can be done when patients need round the clock care.

I was in for three nights last year when I lost my baby. Apart from the obvious heartbreak I was experiencing I was suffering because I'd not sleep properly in that time and just wanted to go home and curl up with my partner on our bed.

They wanted me to stay another night but I knew I was well enough to leave so I pushed for a discharge , offering to return in the morning if they wished to check on my health.

I still flinch when I hear anything that sounds like a blood pressure monitor beeping!

My first baby was born in 1974 in a large hospital. I was in a six-bedded ward but sleep wasn't a problem.

Lights were off at night and any obs were done by torchlight. I was the only one breastfeeding so I was allowed to have my baby with me, but the others were in the night nursery.

Visitors were strictly limited, the television was in a separate room, and we were even expected to nap in the afternoon! Curtains were drawn round and we had to be quiet even if we couldn't sleep. We also did gentle exercises under instruction just before the nap. When we woke, we had tea and biscuits or cake. I was always brought tea and toast - in silence - at night after doing a night feed.

Nurses were quiet and if they had to speak at night, it was done in whispers. Raised voices would have had Sister arriving to check what on earth was going on.

It had all changed by the time I had my fourth in 1986, and I couldn't wait to get home.

www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/01/18/delirium-caused-busy-hospitals-can-trigger-dementia-older-patients/

I was also going to use the example of epilepsy, someone else has just mentioned it, mental health conditions also worsened, as is PND, I felt totally traumatized through lack of sleep after a two day without sleep labour, I then got wheeled onto a ward with mums chatting all night, all bottle feeding (one telling me that bf was 'disgusting') and no help with breastfeeding- another two days later of no sleep and I was hallucinating. Not a good start to having a baby.

Not having conditions conducive to healing (e.g. sleep; infection control; good food) is a huge problem for the NHS, it's not as simple as just treat them and get them out again, lots of people especially the elderly are in there longer term and can't just be got rid of asap (and the difference in being chucked out by the NHS and given time to recover properly after OPs is quite stark between ourselves and other European countries as well- my dad had an op and was given a months recuperation in a wellness facility, in the NHS he would have had 2/3 days and back at home to recuperate despite being disabled and alone).

When my baby was in hospital she needed 3 drugs 3 times a day. As it was less busy at night, the night shift administered 2 of these doses. They also administer them as an infusion where they use a machine to put Saline or whatever through for 10 mins, change that to drug for 20, then flush for 10. But with delays, the line kinking etc this takes best part of 90 mins (with alarms beeping, nurses in and out). If a nurse had time to sit down and syringe in the drug it could be done and dusted in 10 but there's no time for that.

So as a result of poor planning and cut to bone staffing instead of 2x overnight 10 min boluses, I ended up spending the night being kept up for drug administration for and hour or two, spend an hour or so getting baby to sleep, 30 mins kip, next round of drugs, rinse and repeat.

Then the domestic comes round at 9 and says curtains open, parents beds away......

Totally agree. When I was a child I went into hospital and all the ward doors were closed and one sister sat quietly doing paperwork at a desk all night and stopped noise and dealt with disturbances. Last time I was in hospital the doors were open, no staff on the wards and a gossipy chatty nursing g station with nurses talking in normal voices. I learnt all their fucking tea orders and what was in cosmo. Most of the nurse calls were ignored until people got up, to be told loudly that they were 'naughty' for not using the callbutton. It was a fucking nightmare. I was fuzzy and e haunted all day as a result..

I had a baby in 1999 and had to stay in the night before. I got put in a side room-lovely!
But was kept awake the whole night by the sound of a nurse snoring outside my door.

I stayed two nights after on a ward and got no sleep whatsoever so discharged myself in the end.

Oh and of course the knock on was I had a baby up crying all night and I could hear she was keeping the 12 year old in the bed next to us up too.

All too recognisable scary clown.

I've had a few hospital stays over the last year and the first things I packed for going in were earplugs and an eye mask. Absolute necessities.

I've both worked nights in hospitals and been a regular patient in more recent years.

While of course certain tasks necessitate a degree of noise imo some members of staff just do not know how to talk quietly, how to let the bin close slowly, how to hold a door to stop it slamming.

I was in a hdu following itu and it was hell. Not the hourly obs, the wound checks etc but the bin 10 feet from my bed that crashed shut every 5 seconds for 72hrs and listening to the non stop chatting of the night staff 20 feet from my bed. Not in hushed tones either, in full 'tracy! You going to the night out?!' shouts.

I get you op and any NHS staff working nights you are doing a great job, just do quietly, it's not hard.

I'm sorry I can't follow the whole thread properly but there was something in the papers a few months ago about how hospitals should be more in tune with patients and not put them all to bed at the same time and have breakfast at the same time etc. Might have been about nursing homes, mind, I'm a bit sleep deprived and not remembering things well.

I couldn't agree more. My dc was recently in hospital for 3 weeks. For 14 days ish he was exceptionally poorly, close to being moved to ICU several times. He was 8 months old and in the bay were 8 year old, 10 year old and a 15 year year old. They had TVs on until 2am, visitors ALL DAY and into the night. I had to ask repeatedly for quiet and I was in tears several times.

I appreciate that there is a bed shortage, i didn't mind that there were older kids in our bay, what I minded was there being no protocols for protecting sleep. There were NO set visiting hours, which I find ridiculous when it comes to children's bed times. One child actually had 5 visitors with them until midnight.

Lights, bins etc are to be expected, although they were very low after about 9pm ish, but things like visitors, TVs etc shouldn't be allowed after a certain time.

The bins. The fucking bitching bins. Always under a sink or cramped up against a wall. They clang all day every day.

The pyscho tourist patient who the nurses weren't allowed to refuse or to say STFU! Even though she kept up an incessant litany of asks and demands all through the night, every night, for 5 nights. On the 5th night I gave up, sobbing, asking if they could move me. They did within approx 2 minutes because apparently she'd driven everyone else insane too.

The jolly, laughing, talkative nurses in recovery who didn't seem to appreciate that after an 8 hour op I might need to rest. And who didn't come and talk to me or comfort me after I begged them, sobbing, to be quiet so that I could sleep. I was the only patient left in recovery at that point. They didn't care.

It wasn't until I got a private room on my 3rd recent hospital stay that I finally got a good sleep.

I will always remember the lovely nurse who brought me some earplugs after 2 sleepless nights on an emergency ward. I was critically ill so some rest would have really helped me. People were brought in at all times of the day and night, and medics were busy assessing them with lights on and talking 24 hours a day. The biggest problem however were geriatric patients with dementia talking and shouting all night. It was very sad. The emergency ward was not the right place for them, but they really didn't have anywhere else to put them.

You are so right, so much noise could be reduced. I remember Fantasing about walking hospital grounds at 4am to find a quiet corridor to sleep on , I was so desperate.

When you only need basic one done twice a day, why if you have finally dropped off at 4.30 do they then wake you at 5.30am to take your blood pressie. When as long as it done at some point in the morning that's fine. (Waking me
Up and making me angry is going show high BP anyway) then nothing for 2h if you lucky when get cup of tea.

Machines that beep for no reason all night keep everyone awake. But staff take no noice of, so can't be dire need to beep every 5min. Of
Course alarms if some
Urgent problem but other wise put them On silent.

Yes to bin slamming, surely an easy fix, as well as need for quiet shoes so not clip clipping past all night.

Lady I would actually disagree with that. Unless you are on a ward with single rooms, in fact you need rules in acute hospital as this thread shows. Nursing homes are just that, people's homes for people who may be chronically ill but are not acutely ill, and the requirements are different.