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.

My theory (after one night earlier in the year) is that they want you out as quickly as possible, so if you are desperate to go home and sleep it makes that easier.

NHS staff can’t win!

My only experience had been on post-natal wards, but I felt quite murderous towards the staff around the nurses station chatting loudly about non-medical stuff in the middle of the night. Babies waking me up I wouldn't mind, but staff talking at normal pitch when we were all trying to get some sleep after difficult births was beyond selfish.

Your stories of similar annoyance are cheering me.

Of course, there's no accounting for other patients. Lady next to me is vocal about her need for cigarettes.

I spent 24 hours in Intensive Care once. I was barely conscious and post operative and I still remember it as being soooo noisy.

Nhs staff can't win really can we?

Goodness gracious me, that's madness! Poor you!

I think if they brought back old style curtains it would help. These are bible paper.

I got a side room with an opening window - bliss
Then woken up at 1am (I only came round from my op at 4pm) to ask what I wanted for lunch

We've got admissions to do. Can't do them
In the dark. I've got to do your obs because the drs ask for it and it's helpful if you need surgery / at risk of sepsis. I can't do that in the dark either. Half the patients will need IV drips doing at set times in the night I've got to ask my colleagues to help me calculate your medication.

Of course they can win

Not speaking at normal pitch whilst people are trying to sleep is a good start

I have in the past shouted at them to keep bloody quiet some of us would love some sleep. Not my finest moment and been awake for over 36 hours by this point.

They did quieten down though and then mentioned my out burst at change over. Day staff were amazing and it was reported higher up the chain. Someone came and spoke to me same day about the issues with night staff. Things did improve for the rest of my nights and subsequent stays.

Not a ward where patients were often brought on over night. It was them chatting, banging doors, singing, whistling and very squeaky shoes.

zoplicone wasn’t an option due to my medical history. Same with other modes of sleeping tablets. Plus it can take hours overnight to get a Dr to authorise any new meds.

No 😕 and it's a free service service too.

It's not about winning or losing. It's about working together to help people heal. That's what I understand caring to be.

I am incredibly grateful to the staff as I have said several times, and I say to their faces at every interaction.

Some nurses are so kind you remember them all your days and some so horrible they are terrifying.

@SO224350 it isn't a ferrari service actually, it's free at the point of delivery.

In what respect? I'm NHS staff but I can still see that the way people (particularly post natal women) are treated in hospital is not great. Yes, if obs have to be done every few hours, that's fair enough, but I don't see how a lot of the examples on here can be defended.

Agree 100%. I was in hospital several years back, for a couple of nights, and OMG I could NOT sleep, because of the NOISE, and those 2 nights were soooooooooo bloody long. The nurses/doctors/NHS staff kept talking loudly, and humming, and singing, and laughing, and I thought 'FUCK ME!!! Can we not be allowed to sleep?' I got no more than 2 or 3 twenty minute cat naps ALL NIGHT.

I 'get' that it's their daytime/their work hours wotevz, but it's everyone else's SLEEP time. I was meant to stay another 2 nights, but like fucking hell was I going to. I discharged myself and legged it. I'd have gone nuts if I'd had a 3rd (and 4th) night there. WITH NO SLEEP! 😲 How on earth do people manage to stay for many weeks???

I have to say my experience on the ward for my hospital stay last year was very different, I was on a cardio ward. They did have to give me sleeping tablets but this was due to a very confused old lady screaming merry bell all night. But I even recall whilst I was sleeping they came and took some vitals (BP etc with the cuff) and I stirred I have a sleepy memory of a nurse hushing me and soothing me back to sleep. It was lovely and considering I was a 33 year old woman who shouldn't need soothing it worked!

@ICaughtTonsillitisFromAFriendsKid sounds like you're incredibly ungrateful to me. We can't do our jobs in silence. It's done as quietly as possible. If your staff are talking about who won love island then tell them to be quiet. But normal nursing tasks can't be done in silence. I have to wake you up to ask your name and date of birth when I give you or your ward mate medication

It's okay OP, they're probably equally annoyed when their neighbour cuts the grass whilst they're trying to sleep

Yep that's all fine. It's the loud chat that is hard. It sounds as though you aren't a chatter from your post.
Two porters just this moment wheeled a bed past chatting to each other at normal pitch about weekend plans.

It's certainly not a Ferrari service. More Lada circa 1975.

@ICaughtTonsillitisFromAFriendsKid porters aren't ward staff and it gets quieter after midnight

Not in my experience.