Why don't nhs night staff want you to sleep?

[ICaughtTonsillitisFromAFriendsKid]

Sleep is a great healer.
So why is everything done to keep ward patients awake all night? (Well it feels that way)

In the day the wonderful staff are very kind, but overnight, why no whispering, at all? Not even stage whispering? I've just staggered out of bed trying not to rip out my cathetera and canula to pull the bible sheet curtain round a bit, but everyone else is left with curtains pushed back to the walls.

Everyone is so kind and happy to help, I don't even want to say anything, but I'm just exhausted, as are all of these very poorly ladies.

It seems the doctors are not too bad at whispering, I must concede.

@Changedit4this that's not great from your nurse tbh. I used to try and get a normal bed (with rails) so the parent can sleep in the bed with the child, not really policy but it got parents and children so much more sleep. No point in having them sleep on the camp bed as they're rock hard and most children want to sleep with mummy or daddy in hospital because they have all sorts going on and it's scary and they feel like shit on top of that.

I'd always recommend asking for a normal sized bed and telling the staff you're happy to co sleep and you take responsibility for your child in that situation.

My Husband was in the ward beside the sluice and all night every night the staff slammed the door of the sluice room, they also spent so much time in there in pairs laughing and gossiping. In the end my DH had to get out of bed ( he shouldn't have been standing up), hobble to the sluice, pull the door open and ask them to shut up and come and answer the buzzer of one old gentleman who was seriously ill. When i was in a head injuries unit the staff had the tv blaring night and day, no wonder all the patients had a bloody headache.

You should look into home birth, seriously.

I always think the sure sign you need to be in hospital is when you can sleep thru all the noise there. I got a side room because they were afraid I had something dreadfully contagious (I didn't, but lucky me). I slept 18+ hrs/day while in.

Its a nightmare. Hope you can get home soon. I dont understand why sleep isnt treated as important. Just one example how stupid we are on the whole.

Still have literal nightmares about the postnatal ward after my emergency c section two plus weeks ago. Between the lack of pain meds causing me to be in almost constant agony (seriously. The occassional paracetamol and ibuprofen for major surgery when they remember to bring them. Nothing more). And the disruptions and the tv with no remote to it. It's the worst experience I've ever had.

Was all gung ho about going through it all again in a few years, and maybe even being a surrogate for a family member considering that option in the mean time, but just can't consider it at the moment.

My longest stay in hospital to date was 6 nights when DS was born. He had to have 6 hurly trips to the ICU to have intravenous antibiotics. I was lucky enough to get a separate room and was not at all ill or unable to walk. I was just there to be with DS and to take him to the baby ICU every 6 hours for 5 days.

It was frankly hellish and I barely slept. What with, constant breast feeding, nappy changes and winding , wheeling DS to the ICU and back for his (6am, 12pm, 6pm and 12am without fail) which was took almost an hour, cleaners coming in , other babies crying, checks from doctors and nurses , visitors during the day, walking to get my food. None of the nurses helped at all with anything as I wasn't really ill,
or needing help. There always seemed to be something I had to do in the next 1-2 hours which meant I couldn't sleep and when I did drop off I'd be woken by some noise or interruption

When I eventually brought DS home I was almost hallucinating from lack of sleep. . On the first night DS woke twice for a feed and needed quite a bit of settling the first time but I still still got more sleep than in hospital over the whole five days and felt like a new woman in the morning. The memory of the relief of that first night home is more vivid in my mind 17 years later than when DS was born.

Same, seems pathetic to be affected by it for so long but for some of us it really is a life changingly shit experience.

On the postnatal ward at my hospital, there was a woman a few beds down who'd had her baby and made the four days I was there living hell. Loudly proclaiming to anyone who'd listen that her child was being taken by ss (again) because of her drug abuse with a "what can you do attitude". Verbally abusing the midwives and her bf (not baby's father). Phoning up benefits agency, shouting at them demanding "forgotten" payments. It was Christmas, bf was clearly drunk and had loud Xmas films showing on a tablet which they were watching with the baby right up close to his face (she never closed her curtains). Plus multiple phone calls to family having arguments with them. No one could sleep or had the guts to tell them to be quiet. When her bf left she fell asleep and slept all night, snoring loudly, not waking up to see to her baby. Poor thing had pooed all over the crib and was shaking from withdrawal, i asked the midwives to attend to him - apparently not my place to do that - "focus on your own child crunchy". Bit difficult when there's a tiny baby clearly being neglected right next to me! I was trying to establish breastfeeding with my son and crying constantly because my heart was breaking for this poor baby. I know the mother was obviously very vulnerable and drug dependant and clearly needed help, but this is in a ward full of exhausted, emotionally raw parents as it is - I'm sure I'm not the only one who left with a resounding memory of that experience. Worst four days of my life. I had crippling pnd with my firstborn and I think the postnatal ward played a large part in that, even triggered it. More than ever it seemed like the NHS isn't I'm the process of failing, it has already failed - certainly for women anyway.

It’s worth pointing out here that people go to hospital for different reasons and some are going to be in far longer than others.

Someone in for cancer care might be in for weeks at a time and their experience and view is going to be very different to the person in for three days. When you literally can’t see an end to being in hospital where you’re going to be allowed to go home and rest because you need the machines keeping you alive you’re going to get really miserable if it’s awful in there.

The current issues in hospitals also mean sometimes people are in there longer than they need to be. I was recently in hospital three days because I urgently needed to be on a certain kind of drip. Truth is I only needed to be in there two days but it took them twenty four hours to be able to locate the equipment needed. It would have been four days because overstaffing meant they also couldn’t find the doctor needed to discharge me but I am a single parent and was very very aware I would struggle to arrange another night of childcare and ended up requesting they remove the cannula so I could discharge myself (I would not have done this had I not known my bloods said this would be basically fine and had I not been panicking over where my kids were sleeping that night).

When I was on the post natal ward the nurses kept waking me up to check my blood sugars. Tbf they were just following drs orders but I was livid with the drs. I was in hospital because my DD had jaundice, not because I needed help managing my diabetes which I have done myself for over two decades and throughout my pregnancy.

No, always someone complaing about something.

It’s not just noise, movement, light etc, it’s also the actual limited time between last rounds and lights off and then having your blood pressure taken at 5.30am the next morning. Grim.

Did you not get Snoring Dad?

Sorry you’re having a bad experience. When I did night shifts I tried to be as quiet as possible but it’s not always easy as we do have to monitor patients and deal with emergency situations, admissions etc.

And about the curtains, they are pulled back for a reason. We need to be able to see our patients. Imagine if someone haemorrhaged in the night and we didn’t notice because the curtains were drawn! Please keep your curtains open unless you need privacy for something like getting changed.

(Apologies if I’m repeating anything said already. Haven’t RTFT.)

My young son needed to stay in over night after an op, I stayed with him for various reasons. At 1am a cleaner came in, turned on all the lights, cleaned, and then left without turning the lights off. I was astounded, I absolutely hate (NHS) hospitals, they are not designed to assist with healing at all. They seemed to have lost all common sense in this regard, even more so when it comes to birthing.

This is ridiculous and should never happen. What did they say when you complained?

It's so true, the constant obs at different times could definitely be co-ordinated, surely? So many staff are wonderful but, like in all walks of life, you get people who simply aren't as effective (bright) or considerate. But when you're ill in hospital it really has a massive impact and sleep really is an amazing healer. When I've observed it at times, it really does seem as some staff really don't care or see the patients as real beings. But maybe the pay is so poor that those people aren't invested in the job in the first place?

That being said, I also think that after you have had any sort of procedure involving anaesthesia, your reality is a bit warped. You're feeling totally exhausted as you're coming out of it and with your system on alert, even the faintest sound is amplified (in our minds).

But to miss the opportunity of ensuring new mums get as much sleep before they go home as possible is lunacy. I'm sure a lot of heartache and post-natal depression issues would be avoided if you mums didn't get home with their new-borns absolutely exhausted!

For what it's worth, I ALWAYS sleep with ear plugs (day-to-day too) and it's the best thing for sleep - ever! Even when you have a baby (I'd sleep with one ear plug in so not to shut out all sound) as it means you don't fuss over the baby when all the baby is doing is moving in their sleep. Makes for better sleep hygiene for baby too!

Good luck OP.

I had concussion once, and was in observation overnight. I think they woke me every hour to check on me. Understandable, but not restful.

NHS hospital- I don't see how much can be done about it unless you have a private room, and even then... People who can sleep easily, after being woken, can probably cope best.
I had a stay in an NHS hospital. It was noisy and you can't wear earplugs because of the baby and you can't close a window to outside noise as you might at home.

My last hospital stay was in a private hospital and that was a lot more restful and quiet. I didn't feel sleep deprived and desperate to get home as I did at the nhs hospital. I don't see how the private conditions could be emulated in an NHS setting.

This is ridiculous and should never happen. What did they say when you complained?

"Sorry about that" no explanation. I didn't push it any further as we had a more pressing issue of not getting pain relief on time leaving my son very distressed so that was at the heart of most conversations I had with staff. He was also left crying (not on his own I hasten to add, but not with me) for over half an hour after waking up in recovery because there wasn't enough staff for a nurse to leave the children's ward to go get him and bring him to me. He was DISTRAUGHT by the time he got to me. Awful, awful experience. The bad night sleep was a drop in the ocean. We ran out of there the next morning.

Meal times are treated as times that patients are as un disturbed as possible. Night times don’t seem to given the same priority. Obviously checks, treatments, care has to be given at night but little things help like staff not talking loudly as they stand at the desk, not slamming things closed unless they are dealing with an emergency in which case no one is going to be able to sleep with masses of vital intervention. But it surprised me how loud and clattery staff were in general. There was no difference between day time volume. I was only in overnight after a minor op, but it really made me wonder how on earth people get even a few hours sleep of a night during a longer stay.

@summerandsun coordinating obs is good in theory but so difficult in practice. You can never predict when people will go off and require more regular obs. 6 hourly is standard, but if you start at a reasonable time before sleep, say 10pm, they are then due again at 4am. then wake at 5am for bloods, 6 am for antibiotics. If they flag up as being overdue, this works against the ward, sometimes failing things on the systems in place even affect the funding that ward gets, so they have to be done on time, morning obs often take longer so generally have to start even earlier than 4. Plus need to ensure you have time to complete the other morning tasks before the day shift comes on. If you have a post-surgery patient that was on 30 min obs for 2 hours but didn't come back to the ward till 11pm, or someone admitted from a&e in the early hours. It just doesn't happen despite how much effort you put in to trying to do obs all at the same time, they always end up out of sync and you have to go into the bay. I personally never turn on lights for obs, I use my pen torch or phone light, but the machines are noisy, you inevitably end up waking someone who then wants to go the toilet, who you have to disconnect from fluids and assist then they want pain killers that require two nurses and confirmation of patient. Not to mention 2 hourly repositions, pad checks on incontinent patients etc that do require you to put on an overhead light which disturbs others even with curtains drawn. All the will in the world to want people to sleep doesn't make it possible on an acute ward.

@user73783 Oh gosh that sounds horrendous. Your poor son. I’m not sure I could go back to work on the wards now. Everywhere is so short staffed and it’s impossible to give the standard of care people deserve. Every day the (small) hospital I work in is down by at least 30 nurses. An ITU department in my region has over 50 nursing vacancies. It’s soul destroying and I can’t see how it will improve any time soon.

Staff would not be doing your obs every 40 mins just for the fun of it, they were clearly very concerned about you and providing you with good care. I am really sorry you don't see it that way. Obviously over time your BP became less of a concern, hence reducing the monitoring. You could have declined the monitoring if you wished of course, though it could have proved a very dangerous decision.

@allabouttheviews it was entirely down to short staffing, I don't blame the staff themselves at all of course. I am so scared about one of us getting ill with the state of it all atm. DH wants to look at private health insurance, I'm just praying the Tories get out asap, not that it would fix anything over night.