Barbering and nails whilst in hospital?

[FILhip]

A relative had a stroke 2mths ago and is still in an NHS hospital. They have had neither a hair cut nor nails/toe nails trimmed whilst there. Staff have no idea if they have a mobile hairdresser come on site. What normally happens for long term in-patients? Should we organise a mobile barber and podiatrist to visit or is this something PALs could organise?

Not all people have a family to do this. It's basic hygiene and I would hope people who are responsible for care would want to do it.

I genuinely despair at our NHS sometimes. The billions they get and they can't even signpost a service, let alone help do it themselves.

PP's story about her hair is shocking.

It's not additional care, it's the very basics of making sure someone is clean and comfortable! Which has an impact on their health.

Not everyone has family or family nearby that could do this.

OP some hospitals I've visited have a hairdresser salon within the hospital - is there anything about this on the hospital's website?

I agree, but given we don't even have the basics for medical care, I think it would be unrealistic to expect this. Also, I doubt people would want to fund it via higher taxes either. Perhaps an option would be some kind of add on service that you could pay for if you wanted

These shampoo caps are good, I had to use them when I had an accident and surgery which meant I couldn't wash my hair for a bit.

https://www.boots.com/nilaqua-rinse-free-shampoo-cap-10219520?queueittoken=eplannedmaint2024uk~qq0482796c-9f6c-414c-8e55-d07a6403240e~ts1722234426~ceetrue~rtsafetynet~hh_cbf721246fd52b4c9a02823ae43d1a05ce140365530eea664bb6ba4af125c727

In my trust mobile hairdressers are ok if they done use any electronic equipment. The only thing that's allowed to be plugged in for personal use are phone chargers. We've had patients bring in hair straighteners, hairdryers, dehumidifiers.. even had one patient try and bring in a tv. It would cost a fortune to have everything that patients bring in pac tested.

As for nails... family can do it but it's not something the clinical staff would do

I work in a care home and have been in the care sector for many years.

We once had a resident sent to us, straight from hospital after a six week stay. When they arrived, you could smell them as the patient transport brought them in. Stale BO and urine.

When we got them into their room, to our utter horror we discovered that during the hospital stay, their pad had been changed but their genitals hadn't been cleaned. Simply the pad taken away and a new one added. They were red raw. We went onto discover that for their whole stay, nobody had brushed their teeth or done any kind of oral care. This poor person had a build up of food on their teeth and their tongue was dark green and furry. It took us three days of intermittent brushing to remove the food residue in their mouth and many weeks of creaming for their genital skin to repair itself.

If hospitals can't meet the very basic standards of care, you've no hope of a shave and a haircut or nail treatment.

We reckon DM had her hair washed once in 4 months in hospital and developed a horrid fungal skin condition on her scalp (like very bad cradle cap) because of the lack of basic hygiene care. It was also summer and super hot on the ward and to be frank we could smell after she'd been there a fortnight that she'd not been washed, so used to come in and use a packet of wipes to freshen her up. I complained to the nurses and PALS but they did nothing. I think they used to change her incontinence pads, do her medication and move on to the next patient. Because she couldn't talk (stroke) she couldnt ask or complain and it felt like she was left to rot. Goodness knows what would have happened if we hadn't stepped in to help.

I totally agree with this. It wasn't that they didn't do it, it was that they seemed to think I was asking a strange question that they had never been asked before.

In contrast now she is in a care home one of the staff runs a sideline in hair and manicures and pedicures. Standard nail cutting is included in for everyone but mum likes the extra pampering.

@Itsjustmeheretoday

But the family should be doing this, why should the taxpayer be funding this additional care.

This is an utterly disgraceful thing to say. Read on this thread some of the disgusting ways patients have been left to rot by the NHS and think again. What of those without families, eventually sent to care homes literally rotting from lack of personal care?

My grandmother was a nurse in the NHS, and her mother too, and talks about how it used to be. Patients would always be tended too: hair, teeth, nails, and men's beards shaved. Patients aren't even reliably washed now.

It's disgraceful and I'm disgusted that human beings allow other human beings to be left like this. I don't care how stretched the NHS is, I couldn't leave a person in that state. If nurses want to take action for their pay and work conditions they should be highlighting this too. It's not spoken about. Like a dirty secret. Everyone talks about waiting times but not this.

And if there's no family? What happens to all the childless people who siblings are also elderly or frail?

This really concerns me. I'm approaching 60 and have no children or partner and no nephews/nieces

If, when I am more elderly, I ended up needing a long term hospital stay there would be nobody obvious to do these things for me or advocate on my behalf or arrange for it to be done by a private service!

I think that basic hygiene should be part of ward care on hospital wards. Over-long toe nails can cause fungal problems, just as much as cutting them might possibly cause infection. Skin integrity is important so regular washing and proper personal care with incontinence are essential!

I had a horrible experience many years ago following surgery. I was bed bound as had a catheter and drain in. I asked a nurse to help me as I was having my period and needed a pad change. She kept promising she would help but actually spent hours not doing so. She then decided that she was going to remove catheter and drain so she could help me shower. The drain took a while to be removed as it ended up needing medical assistance by which time I had bled very heavily all over the sheets. And that was with an able adult who could advocate for herself ( but was tired and groggy after surgery)

I dread what would happen to me as an elderly person, I really do!

Many years ago my nan was in hospital following a fall. She was in a 4 bed bay with other women of a similar age. I’d go in and see her each day on my way home from work and over the course of two weeks, those poor women got more and more unkempt. One of them had a broken shoulder and not only did she remain unwashed, nobody ever cut up her dinner for her. If I was there at mealtimes I would do it, but if not she went hungry. Nan was left unattended in the toilet for over an hour, despite calling out repeatedly.

Having to go into hospital is something to be feared if you don’t have someone to advocate for you. Neglect and poor care seems to be the norm.

There’s no excuse for not washing a patient. That’s just lazy. Surely it’s basic nursing.

Weird that there is not a link to services for hair and nails that can be paid for OP. No way were you the first to ask! Weird behaviour.

@AbraAbraCadabra
No I didn't complain. The nurses in the rehab unit were so so good though. I did send them a compliment via the trust website.
I thought I was actually going to die of constipation in the acute hospital. I kept asking for an enema to give to myself but they didn't bring one until 11pm one night by which time i had constipation with overflow and was in a nappy. I hadn't eaten for 2 days as felt so ill with this. So I think being clean was the least of my concerns.

I was on an ortho trauma ward for 5 weeks and I think I saw a nurse once half arsedly do a bed bath on one lady. The poor woman was bed bound and incontinent and they seemed to resent changing her bedding.
When I hugged her when she was leaving she smelled really bad. She had no family.
The nurses never helped anyone shower, or wash hair, basically once they could go toilet with a walking aid, they were booted out the hospital.
I was the only one there who showered the whole time. Only because I was physically able to do so alone without a nurse in with me.

That's horrendous. They need more HCA's for stuff like this.

It's not the same everywhere. In our Trust the HCAs will certainly wash hair though it's not as frequent as you'd hope, and the nurses can request nail care from the podiatrist. If personal care does get left, the doctors take note and request action in the ward round notes, and the sisters certainly look out for issues.

All these factors make a huge difference to health, they aren't extras. The one I know about is mouth care, it makes a vast difference to risk of death. But my physio colleagues certainly have a lot to say about toe nail care and the impact on falls risk and mobility, as well as nursing awareness of risks to diabetic feet.

Fundame tally it depends on the sisters. If they prioritise this and demand more resources, it can eventually help. I sometimes think when I retire I might train in foot, hair and nail care and volunteer on a hospital ward. The difference to mood and rehabilitation is stratospheric.

Absolutely but we don’t have any say in it. They could potentially refer to hospital podiatry but they don’t touch anyone other than diabetics and direct people to seek private services. In the case of no NOK, patients often have solicitors as their NOK to deal with their affairs and we wouldn’t be able to access their money to organise such services so it’s a grey area, if they need a social services assessment I’m guessing social services could direct to such services and if they come in from a care home, many have podiatry services. I wish we had more time or were allowed to do stuff such as that and none of us working in healthcare are happy with the reality

My nice aunt was in a rehabilitation unit for a few weeks and no w

and no one cut her finger nails nor toe nails. We were tasked with this. Her own adult children did not bother.

I often wondered what some staff there actually did apart from sit behind a desk. Not all of them were awful but some were far better overall than others. They did not put pressure bandages on her legs when oedema was leaking out, they said it was the job of the district nurse. A person who never visited these wards.

My aunt was in no fit state at that time to go home and of course when she did it all fell apart big time. It became a couple of rounds of home, hospital and rehabilitation unit halfway house between hospital and home. Today she is in a residential care home.

Indeed! I have no children so this both shocks and worries me.

I have no children. Who's going to do it for me?

It's not a health problem. Some nurses will cut nails, not of they're diabetic it's not allowed. A lot of hospitals I've worked at have onsite hairdressers, ask the ward manager and if so they'll let you borrow a wheelchair to take them to the appt

Relative is in hospital a very long way away, a 200 mile round trip on bad roads. Hospital were asking if we're going to do their washing but it's really too far to go to fetch laundry. I'm already very stretched looking after other people.

They're pretty ill so generate a lot of washing.

Staff have to buy washing powder if they do patient's washing and it's only done as a goodwill gesture. Totally unfair on the staff.

@Straightouttachelmsford
I was stuck in a similar situation. I initially approached the hospital chapel to see if they knew of someone local I could pay to collect the laundry, wash/dry and return. That looked a fairly likely option but it turned out the home the relative lived in could collect it, wash it and return - we were after all still paying for a room there even though she was in hospital!

The launderette I used when our washing machine was broken offers service washes and collection/delivery so might be worth a try. No idea if they'd collect/deliver to a hospital ward! It all goes in the tumble dryer though so it depends what their clothes are made of.

It is really annoying that the assumption is everyone in hospital has a crowd of [female] relatives locally with nothing else to do ready to deal with washing, feeding, hair washing, nail cutting, laundry etc!