New NHS uniforms

[Roz446]

We’ve just had to order our new NHS uniforms, none of us very impressed with the grey (postman blue)outfits which are replacing our existing royal blue dresses. Has anyone had these through yet? When I first qualified nearly 20 years ago our uniforms were lovely and have gradually gone down hill since, who chose grey for us?? (just a disclaimer to say I know this isn’t the most important topic in the country/NHS at the moment)

Do you have photos? I imagine just another waste of NHS resources I’m sure the Mail will jump on it. My mum was a nurse in the 80’s and looked amazing, her uniform was so smart.

Not yet but can google them, yes I can’t understand why on earth they’re spending the money on this? Yes love the old style uniforms

NHS uniforms are not the same across all areas/trusts though. My two nearest hospitals have very different uniforms which is very confusing when trying to ascertain the level/role of the person I’m talking to.

I agree with this and some national conformity would help.

All matrons in x
All staff nurses in y
All standard nurses in z
All hca's in zx

It's impossible to tell who's who where we live and they introduce with their name but their level, sometimes the hca's are referred to as nurses. It's not acceptable.

I also agree that change for changes sake is a waste.

A new “standard” colour for uniforms was published, suspect this has led to the change for OPs trust. It is optional for trusts to choose to use it. The national colours have one colour per grade/specialism.

Just reading some posts on Reddit and apparently people who have received them have been far from impressed, apparently the fitting is awful and only fits flat chested women and slim blokes, the materiel awful too. All I can find online is that it is a mix of cotton and recycled polyester, but can’t find what proportion the mix, why can’t it just be cotton?

We have Wales wide uniforms, so wherever you go you can tell who is who. Midwives are grey with us.
The quality isn't great, but as they had to buy thousands (?tens of thousands?) of uniforms at once I guess there just wasn't the money for it.

We have standard uniforms in Scotland too, nice and easy to figure out who does what.

(Hopefully the pic attached)

Better to stick with the decent quality old ones then, I can’t see how this new colour scheme going to automatically make roles clear. We wear lanyards with our roles clearly specified on them (not just the badge/ID card) some trusts have the job role on epilates which seems the clearest way. Seems a huge waste of money for a load of rubbish by the sound of it

Can’t see how they are any clearer than what exists at the moment?

Ah OK. My nearest hospital uses shades of brown for nursing / HCA / porterage staff so will be interesting to see if they change. The other hospital uses shades of blue and green .

We're in Scotland and every trust has the same so if you are talking so someone with the cornflower blue tunic they are a staff nurse no matter which hospital in Scotland you are in.

That’s pretty standard staff nurse
uniform across most of the country, white or blue, I don’t think most people have a problem identifying staff nurses, however you still have to know the colour code of Scottish uniforms whereas the epilate saying nurse makes it exceptionally clear. I don’t have anything against a national colour code but why such apparently rubbish quality and is it the top spending priority at the moment? Why has any job role been assigned drab grey. I think it’s going to be even more confusing as my role traditionally always wore royal or navy blue, the only staff I ever saw in grey in any hospital were cleaners or students, btw housekeepers have also been assigned a just slightly different shade of grey,

For some reason they made a uniform for ODPs (of which I am one), but I can’t see any ODP ever wearing one since they’re in theatre and therefore scrubs…
Apparently it is for “out of theatre” jobs but ODPs performing duties outside of theatre usually have their own uniform, or they don’t let us out anyway because we “aren't qualified enough” 🤯
Makes you wonder who they’ve paid to make these decisions.

🤣 Ridiculous isn’t it 🤦🏻‍♀️ someone no doubt made a lot of money from the rollout of these new uniforms

@JazzTheDog frickin terrible though if you are a physio or OT, how are most patients particularly the elderly meant to distinguish AHP's from nurses? at least the NHS england one has a bit more definition between AHP's, other professions and the nursing staff ...though yet again why can't it be unified across the whole of the uk thing rather than home nations doing their own thing, that doesnt help uniform supply contract costs. @Roz446 are you a midwife? Really not great if the fit isn't working for staff who have very physical roles https://azuksappnpdsa01.blob.core.windows.net/datashare/NHS-Healthcare-Uniforms-Colourways-24-October-2024.pdf jobs. nhs england attached

Are these the national uniforms @Roz446?
If so the process has been going on forever. We (dietitian/AHP) got to vote for the colours and types ages ago. AHPs in their wisdom chose majenta, which is great if your ginger!
https://www.supplychain.nhs.uk/categories/facilities-and-office-solutions/uniforms/nhs-healthcare-uniform/

I saw them at Nursing live a couple of years ago. Absolutely hideous. The dresses look like sacks. I like my current tunic. It looks professional and I don’t feel like a sack of potatoes. I don’t want to wear scrubs.

This one is a national one.

Ours is red with mint green trim. I’d give my right arm for grey. They are not in our trust but friends in other trusts hate them. Our current uniform is plain white - same as a whole load of other job roles and no distinction between bands. I’m a band 7 and wear the same as the band 2 receptionist so I have to be always explaining that I’m the person doing the procedure and I am fully trained and qualified.

I think everyone being admitted to hospital should be given a laminated guide to uniforms for the duration of their stay.

Our hospital has boards on all wards and departments with pictures of the uniforms

Plain white for so many job roles is a bit ridiculous, although I can imagine it would be popular for being very gender neutral. At the moment we have ours based on job role/banding, so we wear the same colour as a band 6 nurse and our shop floor managers wear the same as a band 7 nurse. Every role has lanyard with role clearly stated and easily visible on it which tbh even I find really useful as the drs wear them too. Where I worked previously midwife’s wore a lovely navy dress/top and tunic and the managers just had a different trim. Staff nurses wore white and ward sisters/charge nurses royal blue. I don’t remember getting a vote on the colour of our uniforms, I can’t imagine many people would have voted for grey. I feel particularly sorry for the male healthcare assistants having to wear lilac,

I’ll definitely be taking mine to a seamstress!!

The shapeless sack cut of them is worse than any change in colour.

am surprised to hear some trusts still have lanyards, mine did away with them ages ago for infection control purposes.