To think confidentiality at hospitals is terrible

[Saucysusieisinbed]

Admitted yesterday for knee operation. Full nursing completed at bedside. (Name, date of birth, address) full medical history, kids etc.

Handover completed at each bedside so easy to hear what’s going on with each person.

Ward round completed again at bedside.

I guess logistically the hospitals will always struggle to manage this. When cqc visited our place (mental health) they were really harsh on us having a soundproof room but it not being away from client area.

I have never been in hosp before but was pretty surprised but I also don’t know the answer!

I don’t think anyone disagrees it’s an issue but what is the fix short of every single patient having a private room which is just a nightmare in some scenarios.

If you want to talk with anyone you would need to take them somewhere to a separate room. God knows there is no spare room as it is so maybe taking precious space away for this, remove some bed capacity? You then have to wait for every patient to be brought in to you in this separate room, so a lot of time spent getting people out of bed and too and fro as they would need to be accompanied. Needless to say not everyone is ambulatory so some people would have to be transferred in wheelchairs and in some cases that’s not even possible so I guess porters would need to be arranged to move some in beds to and from this separate room. All of this is going to mean it takes 10x longer to see anyone and achieve anything so patient care will slip even further or they employ 10x more staff - pretty obvious which it would be.

Then there are the elderly. You virtually have to scream for some of them them to hear anything. Not sure a separate/private room would even help there, you could probably still be heard at the other end of the ward irrespective.

It’s helpful to have changeovers bedside to put face to patients name, it’s also a safety thing. Otherwise for all you know two elderly people could change beds on returning from the toilet and one is treated incorrectly (I know bands should be checked but that’s in an ideal world and as it’s not every extra layer of protection is valuable). Lots of other reasons.

On post natal ward recently, woman opposite me was having issues with cocklodger partner, she'd chatted to me earlier and he'd badly shut her down and told her to stop bothering me (she wasn't). Her mum arrived to visit she had her curtains pulled round but he kept ringing to argue with her, she got frustrated and shouted at her phone 'ugh I'm not answering your bloody face time so you can shout at me again' then to her mum -loudly 'why are some people such arseholes?!'. All of which was clearly audible to the rest of us, it was quickly followed by a slightly sheepish 'sorry everyone...'
The lack of privacy actually helped, he was awful to her and it meant I heard her get aggressive calls from him and cry a good few times. She'd put a brave face on for the midwives, but I spoke quietly to one who'd come in to do a test on DS and said she'd been crying a lot and I was a bit worried. I noticed someone pop by her area more often after that even with just the tea trolley, and after the facetime incident she came and chatted to me and the woman in the bed next to me, where we assured her he was being a dick and she needed to focus on herself and baby.

One of my colleagues makes us do bedside hand over. I absolutely hate it. It's terrible for confidentiality. And in the miring wakes everyone up.

We usually go and hide In the clean utility/ treatment room/ sluice or store room to hand over.

Any hospital that considers humanity to be an optional extra that can be disregarded is a failing hospital.

YANBU. I am often horrified at the things I overhear in hospitals, both as a patient and a relative of a patient.

I remember being in after having DD1 and being in a bed close enough to the desk that I could hear far far too much. Very politely ended up saying, after hearing the staff slagging me off (I really didn't deserve it - I'd incurred the wrath of someone for asking for a couple of minutes to discuss what they'd told me with DH and to stop shouting at me - very politely) that I didn't know if they knew how badly the noise carried and I'd hate for them to make that mistake in front of someone who was likely to get them all into bother - so it was just a friendly tip-off for the future.

I hate how hospitals can get away with treating patients though (one of our local ones is dreadful for it) - it's like humanity and dignity are now an optional extra with healthcare.

My DP had day surgery for testicular cancer last year. In pre-op, going through personal info, operation procedure, risk of anaesthetic etc with just a curtain between us and the next bed. Consultant almost jokingly mentioned the 95-98% survival rate which did take some of the nerves away.

He then walked into the next bay, again through a curtain. Poor chap in the next bed was facing an 8 hour op to remove many tumours and have some major post-op life-limiting adjustments. He was also told his chances of surviving the operation itself (never mind long term prognosis) were incredibly low. It was utterly heart breaking. A real case for privacy protection.

My experience of hospital is mainly about recent visits for my dad but in my experience whenever the doctor or nurses came to discuss his care or examine him they would pull the curtains round - and my dad has dementia and confusion so he wouldn't really have complained if they didn't. I think he was treated with s lot of respect.

I agree. MIL was in hospital with cancer and was really struggling to come to terms with it all. Luckily she was in a side room but she had a couple of visitors who were incredibly nosy about MILs condition, wanting to know all the gory details! Several times doctors and nurses came into the room whilst she had visitors and started talking to her about her condition! I think they’re so rushed and on auto-pilot they don’t stop and think about what they’re doing.

We used to do handover in the office but then the number of patient falls went up as there was less staff on the actual ward so we started bedside handover which increased the number of complaints of being woken up too early and lack of privacy. So we are damned what ever we do as nurses.

Ideally it needs to be in an office with a closeable door for privacy and so that staff can have a thorough hand over of the patient. But bedside is great as you can flick through the bedside notes and spot anything that is outstanding ie unusual observations that haven't been repeated or acted on or assessments that need doing and you can question the off going nurse as to why things haven't been done.

Personally best is office handover with patient bedside notes being used ie Mrs x is in with problem y, history of z and she needs a,b and c doing and here are her observations and assessments which need completing.

But that takes time and some staff like to chat.

I used to go to the day care unit in my own hospital for treatment once a month. I was very surprised to see that on their white board they wrote the initials of what treatment each patient was having. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out each patients under lying condition. I did mention it to the senior staff. My ward got rid of our white board because of confidentiality issues. We hated not having it. It was replaced with a very expensive smart board and system we never used. Finally got our white board back and we are all happy!

My grandmother recently died unexpectedly whilst being treated in hospital. My parents and other family members were taken to see her body whilst she was just laying on her hospital bed with the curtain round her. They had to say their goodbyes in these circumstances with no privacy other than a curtain. Horrible for them and horrible for the other patients in the ward who must have felt very uncomfortable and like they were intruding even though they had no choice. There was a private unoccupied side room at the time, we have no idea why they didn't just wheel her bed in there.

Then patients are brought into ward round and key worker handover. More time consuming but works.

Which is fine if all your patients are mobile. Doesn’t work so well on intensive care, HDU, post op patients, immobile patienfs and endless drips and infusion pumps.

We do have handover in the office but then we have to go out and handover by the patient’s bedside to involve them in their care.

My son had a week long hospital stay in October. In the ward of six beds we knew what each child was in there for. All curtains had to be kept back to be social and there was a toy table in the middle. It was hellish. Upset parents had nowhere to hide away for a bit as the curtains would be whipped straight back again.