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.

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When I was working on the wards you’d get told off by the night sister if your shoes squeaked, they were hot on being quiet. We weren’t allowed to chat at the nurses station and the call bell was put on silent.

I was in hospital for 3 weeks, couldn't walk so I just asked the night nurse who came round with pills to draw my curtain around me to keep out the light. I also used head phones to listen to music to go to sleep. Keeps out the noise of talking.

I used to work in a psych ward and had to check people hourly by lifting a door flap, which was never quiet enough. I hated it, but sometimes those obs did save people's lives. Why were they offering you tea in the middle of the night? I bet they were trying to promote sleep hygiene the next morning when you said you didn't sleep well too as if it was your fault you couldn't sleep.

I have been on a post natal ward and luckily it was only for two nights but I was hallucinating from lack of sleep at the end. I was expecting it to be like the old days where you put your child in a room and skulk off for a sleep while the midwives helped you with the first stages of caring for a baby. Instead I was trying to deal with a baby screaming in the middle of the night not knowing what I was doing. I wish I had just discharged myself.

Yep, that explains why they can't close a door (not just let it clash closed) or lower a metal bin lid(not just let it go) 🙄🙄🙄🙄

the beeping is fine(ish) if necessary but when it's faulty & is only going because it needs a battery change 🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

chatting LOUDLY about their social life (worse still sex kids) at the side/foot of your bed.

not telling the bloke in the next ward to STFU on his sodding phone. 'International business don't you know'

or the stupid selfish cow on the same ward who was on her phone permanently when she didn't have loud visitors.

being on a ward with dementia patients was distressing & difficult, but they weren't being inconsiderate, so...

hospitals are not places to recover, that's for sure.

Controlled drugs need verbal DOB from patient, and a check of last four digits of chi from wrist..

Never bothered me, i'm in there because i'm ill and if i get that tired, i'll sleep, the last time was in for a broken hip and femur, soon got used to the noise.

The staff have a poor job and they get hit from all sides, the latest because they dared to have a tea party with a Rainbow cake ('Mail)

i get far more angry that a FT nurse renting, with 2 kids will be using food banks and on UC.

Anyway, if they strike for more pay, they wont be there to disturb you.

I agree with you I did an assignment of the importance of sleep on the wards when I was at uni. On the other hand if you have some very sick people on the ward , physical OBS needed to be taken . Interventions need to be done if somebody gets very sick because you wanted to let them sleep you could get severely into trouble.

I spent a week in hospital when pregnant with my son. My overriding memories of that stay was the loud staff talking, the radio on all night, the porter who obviously had desires to do stand up comedy and perform his act to any nurse willing to listen and then during the day when I would finally doze off, being woken up and told to get out of bed to sit in those uncomfortable high backed chairs because I needed to mobilise.

No, I'm trying to grow a human being and am in with severe sickness, what I need is sleep not mobilising!

I was in for a week with my daughter when she was 5 weeks old, private room on the childrens ward (as she hadnt been vaccinated) and other than my only meal choices being the tiny kids meals (I was bf'ing so was fed) it was so much better, and God bless the nurse who saw i was slowly starving and bought me extra food.

Slightly unnecessary (and a massive generalisation).

It's the same experience in a private hospital and room I had a procedure and I stayed for 4 nights the nurses were checking in and out all night. Money won't save you from observations and drips. 🤣

I think some of problem is the nhs don't have day and night staff you have to do both .
Night staff learn though the years to be quiet .

But day staff don't.

Last time I was in, they woke me up to ask if I wanted a sleeping tablet. 🤷‍♂️

I feel for you OP.

For me it was the least healing place to be. Very anxiety inducing and upsetting to realise the lack of understanding of what I needed to heal; rest, sleep, privacy and peace of mind / chance to come to terms mentally with what I’d been through.

I know you’re not on the post Labour ward this time, but it’s the reason I’ve opted for a home birth with my second. I just can’t put myself through that experience again, never felt so unsupported and panicky as I did when in hospital.

I really hope there is a change in attitude toward this aspect of hospital care soon, I think it’s a vital part of healing.

@TooMuchToDoTooLittleInclination the beeping could be line occlusion because the patient won't keep their arm still. Faulty equipment and batteries needing changing can't be helped..

Talking about their sex lives not on tbh I would have mentioned something about that..

I could ask patients to keep down their personal or work phone calls but if I ask too much they'll complain and it goes straight to pals or matron now because that's what people do. One of my colleagues was reported to the nmc for asking a patient nicely to not speak to her husband on speaker phone and was suspended for 3 months, found no case to answer and reinstated but it's not nice.

So then I have to spend about 3 days worrying whether I'm going to be suspended for 'being rude' when all I did was ask politely but firmly for the patient to talk a bit quieter on the phone / use headphones to watch a film.

After 5 complaints that inevitably went nowhere because I wasn't rude (I can promise I wasn't) I just gave up. My colleagues are the same. I worked my last shift of bedside nursing last week and I will miss my colleagues but enough is enough

This thread has brought back the horrors of giving birth to my first son. I was meant to be induced in the evening, but they kept saying they'd be back shortly. Around 2am they said it probably wouldn't happen until the next day, so I tried to go to sleep. Eventually got to sleep and was woken up for the induction at 4am. So I had had about an hour's sleep before I even started labour. The following two nights I was in labour and had no sleep at all. Emergency C-section. Paid a fortune for an individual room to try to get some sleep but people came in and out all night. Begged to be allowed to sleep and they promised to leave me alone for a couple of hours. Fell asleep and was immediately woken up by a cleaner who had come to clean the shower I had not used because I couldn't stand up. I cried.

With hindsight, I think it was the five nights without sleep that made it so hard to bond with my son.

• I mean to say never felt so unsupported and panicky as I did in the days after I had given birth. I was very supported during the birth

Or maybe it's because they have a job to do??? Staff can't be silent the entire night when they have patients to check on. Personal care to give. Skin care to give. Unwell patients can't be hidden behind curtains. Unwell patients can't be ignored for the entire night without their observations being taken.

In my experience night staff do try very hard to keep the noise down. But in a quieter environment at night time and when there are no soft furnishings (carpets, fabric curtains etc) to help muffle the noises, whispering and any other noise does seem much louder than it is so they are fighting a losing battle!

Very obvious divide here between the HCPs who will be remembered fondly by their patients - and the HCPs who feel their patients should be grateful there are staff in the building.

So selfish and thoughtless that they spend years messing up their sleep patterns and in turn permenantly damaging their bodies. FFS

OP is in hospital not a residential nursing home. Patients have varying care needs, and contrary to popular opinion the NHS runs 24/7, patients continue to get admitted overnight and need clerking in acurately not through misheard whispers, patients get transferred hospital to hospital at night if needed they need accurately handing over not through misheard whispers. Nurses need to monitor some patients at night, for this they need to see their patients, they can't see through curtains, and I'm sure you would be much more disturbed if they came around periodically to every bed pulling back to curtain for a look.

Many NHS hospitals need modernising with more private rooms, as ideally every patient who is stable enough should be in a private ensuite, but this is not the set up in most hospitals, and this is definetly not the fault of the staff.

You also need to turn the light on if you are doing a cannula change. You can't do one in the dark and if I did it in the wrong place a patient would make a complaint. If we didn't do OBS and someone died we would get into trouble. I've been a patient so I empathise , when it was time for discharge I went and stayed in a hotel to sleep for a day of sleep before I went home.
I'm really sorry but hospitals are there for active treatment it's not for convalescence. Some people are desperately unwell and will need interventions throughout the night.

What kind of a comment is this? It's not a race to the bottom?

I think I told them very firmly that I did not agree to any obs being carried out between midnight and 6am. It was totally unnecessary in my case and after a gruelling 104 hour labour I needed rest. I can be pretty firm and they eventually agreed. Private room also helped. But obviously if your medical condition is more precarious you can't do this. It is generally bizarre why they don't want to let you sleep!

There is such a massive staffing crisis going on that any ward with enough staff is actually a miracle in its self.

We are over worked, underpaid and quite obviously from this thread exceptional undervalued. No wonder so many nurses and healthcare assistants are leaving the NHS.

This negativity and public criticism is exactly what the government want. When the health service becomes privatised you will all be moaning then also! And you will realise what an amazing service you had at your fingertips. When you have to pay £200 per A&E visit or £70 for a GP appointment (like they do in Ireland) you'll see what you've lost!

I agree, my DH needs obs throughout the night but.... some staff will do them as quietly / unobtrusively as possible and others don't!