Do nursing staff not wash patients anymore or change sheets?

[keepswimming38]

My daughter has been admitted to hospital with meningitis. She’s on an infectious diseases ward. I’ve been by her side most of the day for 3 days and despite her not being able to move as she is so weak, not one nurse has asked her if she wants to freshen up, have a wash, change her sheets. I’ve done it for her. Is this usual? The nurses are sat next to their little computer trolleys, or chatting at nurses station, so not all run off their feet I would say.

When I was in hospital they came every day and asked if I needed help washing. I didn't but others on the ward did and were given the appropriate amount of help. I was only in 3 days and the bedsheets were definitely changed at least once.
Both my elderly parents spent a lot of time in hospital in the last few years and they've always been well looked after and kept clean.
In my opinion, this should be what happens. Obivously it varies from hospital to hospital but this is a basic level of care and not doing it is really not acceptable.

does she want washing herself? I’m not sure if I was weak and incredibly unwell I could tolerate it?

The HCA usually do a basic bed wash. When my mother was discharged years ago her hair was manky dirty, she always had neat clean hair.
I find it sad that they take full plates of food away often when the patient is too sick to feed themselves are left hungry.
My sister is a hca in a nursing home, patients always come back under weight and dirty, in the care home they’re fed if necessary, washed properly in the shower.

And the wage erosion. We can’t recruit and retain band 2 for love nor money. 20 years ago the band 2 wage was significantly more than NMW. Now they’ve got rid of band 1 and 2 is pretty much on a parity after an emergency early pay rise. Round here Tesco, Lidl and Amazon all pay more. So not only did we have an exodus of band 2s we can’t replace them because we get few applicants and a lot of what we do get are ‘interesting’. I think we’ve probably failed to recruit for about half the jobs we’ve put out in the last 5 years.

MN will tell you that the pension is good so you have to suck up the pay. But if you need to pay the rent now an excellent t pension in 40 years is fuck all good.

Having said that, I have been in several times over the past 2 years and have had sheet changes everyday and mostly been offered a bowl if I haven’t already showered/managed a sink wash myself.

As much as I want to disagree with this, I do think your right.
Im a nurse, trained 20yrs ago and have gone on to do more qualifications and nurse at a higher level, the way the profession and health system has changed does require this to a large extent. But at same time I love to still have the opportunity to change clothes, make a cuppa, give a freshen up (I work in district nursing) for patients as well as use my skills to prescribe medications. I do see degree level new nurses with their eyes on the prize from day one of becoming advanced practitioners and sadly don’t seem to want to retain the core principles of a caring profession with the most basic but essential tasks I view as being privileged to do as a nurse. Sad but true. Not saying this is the case for all obviously before anyone comes at me.

When I had my last baby if had a c/s and when I walked for the first time I had a massive blood leak that went on the floor. I tried my best to wipe it up with toilet roll, and the smears on the floor were still there 4 days later and my bloody sheets hadn't been changed. The staff were run off their feet, including the HCAs so I understood why.
There is definitely more of an expectation in geriatric wards that family assume a role of personal care. There isn't the time for the nurses to be doing daily bathing or even changing clothes. I don't think it's anything to do with attitudes of nurses, they seem to be required to do more paperwork now than patient care.

I was in hospital for a couple of weeks last summer. I was not able to mobilise, had surgery on my leg, catheter in etc . I was also menstruating. I asked for some assistance with hygiene- could they bring me some soap and water or wet wipes so I could wash and put on fresh underwear and sanitary towels. I was told by a senior nurse” you washed yesterday” as though wanted to wash every day in the height of summer, on a sticky smelly hospital ward, while menstruating was somehow an odd request.!!
Bizarre standard of hygiene. As for brushing teeth…

My experience of having my elderly dad with advanced dementia and Parkinsons, wife and myself in various NHS hospitals over the last few years is that nursing personal care is absolutely woeful.

When my dad was in hospital for several weeks, my brother and I took turns to be at the hospital almost every day otherwise basic tasks like washing and feeding would get missed. He was also incontinent and I arrived to find him in unchanged sheets multiple times.

My wife was seriously ill last year and the NHS were frankly useless. We had to pay £10,000 to go private to get decent care including all of the above personal care.

Agree with this
Nursing is a lot more complex than it was in the "call the midwife " era

Nursing has evolved. It's generally the HCAs job to be changing sheets and to be involved in personal care, but they've probably all gone to work in a newly opened Aldi for better pay and less responsibility.

People need to be careful what they wish for. Complaints about doctors being paid too much, now nurses take on some of that responsibility and have passed lots of personal care to HCAs. Complaints over how much bank/agency staff are being paid. As a result wards are expected to work short staffed rather than use agency/bank. Complaints the NHS costs too much. NHS has to find efficiency savings (some are looking at over 20% for their CIPs this year). Well then you can't have sheets changed every day. Sheet washing is all contracted out, so washing less saves money, etc etc.

Undoubtedly but the care still needs to be done. It seems from this thread that quite a lot on a ward is due to the senior nurse running it and their expectations. It would also seem that expectations on some wards definitely need to be raised.

I think that what's so awful about NHS at minute - you'll either get really good care or awful and there's no way to know before hand .

If you talk about awful things relatives and we have experiences some poster construe that as bashing NHS staff.

Dsis and I both complained to Pals and others about poor manterity care in our respective areas - result was we got worse care - so with elderly relatives we couldn't be there 24/7 with no we didn't complain - and then after sometimes we have but if there been deaths well it's not top of your mind. Then it's somehow your fault for not complaining - or not peristsing with complaints - not that a basic level of care should be standard.

I' don't know if it's a money or staff issue because even now wards in same hopsitals some seem able to do basic care others don't.

I’m sorry to hear she’s so unwell OP, you must be so worried about her. I hope she’s back on her feet as soon as possible.

I think your daughter would probably prefer your personal care rather than the nurses, but I do understand where you are coming from.

This is one of the crassest comments I've seen on MN and it's a competitive field.
I'm guessing you have never been gravely ill.

I'm sorry your daughter is so ill OP and I'm glad you can be there. When you are very ill it affects mind and body whatever your age. You don't have the capacity to "advocate" for yourself, you can barely think.
I was in hospital with a serious infection a few years ago and I could barely remember my name I was so ill. Definitely ask, loudly, I think you'll find they rush to do it.

It's actually nothing new, I remember DS1 being in hospital 30 years ago and there was no personal care given. The only "nursing" was doing OBS. He was slightly different as he was a baby at the time and it seemed that the parents were expected to do it. One poor mother, a lone parent, had three other children and she was forced to leave her sick baby. None one member of staff went to that child day or night when he cried.

I am sorry to hear this and I wish your daughter a speedy recovery.
To share my personal experience, I was in hospital for a couple of weeks early last year before and after giving birth. I was in a private room both times. I generally found the midwives and care assistants to be very helpful, I am blind so needed extra support when I was in hospital alone for a week pre-birth, though my husband stayed with me for the week post-partem so the staff didn't need to help me much with personal care after birth. A CA came in every day to clean the bathroom, empty bins, etc. The only problem was that my sheets were never changed. I slept in the bloody sheets I had come back from theatre after my c-section in for most of the week I spent there, only being changed when I finally got up the courage to mention it to one of the staff the day before we were going to leave. In the staff's defence, we ended up staying there longer than expected due to non-medical reasons so they might have thought the sheets had already been changed or that we were leaving the next day so no need to do it. Also, I suppose my husband and I really should have said something if nobody had noticed, I think we just didn't want to make a fuss and I guess we had other priorities as slightly shell-shocked new parents! It's really only now that I look back at that and think that sleeping in blood-stained dirty sheets for a week while trying to nurse a newborn and recovering from abbdominal surgery may not have been the most hygienic situation!
My advice is not to be as reticent as we were, I think it absolutely falls within the remit of ward staff, nurses or care assistants, to help your daughter with personal care and changing sheets, so, if this isn't being done, please go ahead and ask for it. I know you shouldn't have to ask but my own experience shows that's the only way things get done sometimes.

As PP said if you have a child hooked up to 3 drips, heart, oxygen monitors and more, how in hell was I supposed to wash or dress him or change the sheet for the third or fourth time again.
And even with a less significant illness at no point are you told on a NHS peads ward that you are expected to provide hands on care. For people who have never experienced life in a hospital ward before then, its a huge learning curve. The reality that you can't work, are on 24/7 care duty while on the wards and are strongly discouraged from leaving, but will not be fed or watered is crazy. With no sleep cause of cryingchildren, parents and endless beepingmonitors. Either get better staffing or tell parents the reality.

@TheFaithfulWeaver ”I do still think the pools of her blood and pus along the corridors should have been cleaned up in a 5 hour window.”

You’re not wrong, no one should have to risk catching hepatitis just by walking along a hospital corridor. Some of these stories are horrendous too.

We need staff and there are people out there who still want to do this work, anyone seen the student midwives story recently? Maternity care is getting worse with more dying ffs. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g6p5ge617o

It really isn’t worth working hard in this country with the horrendous fees to train and low wages - nurses are not on enough for what they have to do or their responsibilities. That’s probably why the new ones have to have their eyes on advancement, @livedexperienceangel

It does not seem as if complaints and warnings of unsafe care mean anything to our politicians they have let us down for decades.

This country is going down the plug hole because of the bleeding out of public funds by the richest. Bernie Sanders has it right about America, we of course have copied America for years. We pay less per capita for the NHS than France or Germany do for their healthcare. Beats me how they claim we are unproductive when we’re running around all day, I think it’s all lies. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/01/billionaire-wealth-tax-trump

at no point are you told on a NHS paeds ward that you are expected to provide hand on care

Very few parents who are sat with their child need to be told to change a nappy, or to keep them clean or to help them eat. Generally parents choose to stay with their child because they are ill and often frightened by such novel surroundings but if you can't stay then of course staff will care for your child (if all parents unilaterally decided to go home there would undoubtedly be a problem but usually it's just a few who are absent at any given time)

Won't stuff like bowel movements and eating be recorded on a patient's notes? So no need for staff to ask the patient. Last time I was in hospital overnight washing (bed bath or offer of assistance to shower) was done quite early in the morning, definitely long before visitors came in. Think beds normally changed then too. Of course, if OP has been at her daughter's bedside for 20 hours a day then she will have a better idea what care has been offered.

Can I ask what research you’ve done on nurse training? If it from reading the daily mail/express then I’d suggest you try to go a little deeper into a subject you seem to know very little about.

Dd was in for a week a few years ago aged 17 and didn’t have a change of sheets once. She ate 3 meals a day in that bed, was offered a shower every other day inbetween drips. I genuinely didn’t realise I could have asked for the sheets and done it myself otherwise I would have.
I remember years before when my mum was in, her sheets were changed daily in the morning - I honestly presumed that was still the case until on about day 4 when dd said her sheets were getting a bit smelly.

No not normal.

They should be helping with washing (i.e she does some bits and they help her with what she can't manage) or bed bathing depending on what your daughter can manage currently. They should be changing her sheets daily because of infection control measures. This can be done by an HCA, but if she is weak and needs help rolling over in bed it will need 2 people minimum. They normally do this first thing in the morning. Nurses are all trained to do this and have to help the HCA's as there are not enough staff to wash everyone who needs assistance otherwise.

They should be recording her food and fluid intake in a chart especially if her intake is low, the HCA should do this but her named nurse should be monitoring it. It should be in the nursing documentation, you can ask to see it with your daughter's permission.

When my usually self caring husband was in hospital with Covid he was bed bound and too weak to wash himself, the nursing staff did it as we were not allowed on the ward. When I was in HDU they washed me when I was bed bound and offered to help with a shower once I was mobile after surgery. Staff have washed my mobile elderly father using a bowl of water on all his hospital stays.

In paeds they will expect you to do what you would normally do for your child re: feeding and bathing using the shower/bath on the ward, but if they are very unwell or have mobility issues then they will bed bath them. They should be changing the sheets for the child, but often parents just do it anyway as they put their own parent beds away for the day or if the baby soils or vomits. I didn't mind doing this with my kids as I would do it at home anyway.

Definitely complain and request that these things are done.

So you're talking about a drip and machines not just a cannula. The cannula is just the needle in your arm/hand

I hope your daughter gets well soon OP