8 May 2009
Patients at Epsom and St Helier hospitals will soon benefit from greater levels of privacy and dignity during their hospital stay, thanks to a massive £1.1million cash injection.
The money will help the Trust to fast track its efforts to ensure that men and women do not have to share sleeping areas, bathrooms or toilets when admitted to hospital and that their privacy and dignity is upheld wherever possible. The works are due to be completed this summer.
Most of the £1.1million will be spent on improving bathing and toilet facilities in Frank Deas, Buckley and Richard Bright wards, as well as in the clinical assessment and coronary care units.
£100,000 will also be spent on new telemetry heart monitoring equipment for the coronary care units at Epsom and St Helier hospitals. This mobile state-of-the-art equipment will give staff greater levels of flexibility to treat patients with increased privacy, as they will be able to move patients to private areas without compromising the ability to monitor their hearts.
Other improvements include introducing:
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more privacy curtains in bathrooms to shield patients when a nurse goes to help them;
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new leaflets and other information for patients giving them more information and greater understanding of our mixed sex accommodation and the changes that are taking place.
Director of Nursing, Pippa Hart said: "We know from talking to patients that they find mixed-sex accommodation, including toilets and bathrooms, unsettling, uncomfortable and undignified.
"Whilst our general ward areas are already single-sex, this money will ensure that the high quality treatment we provide to our patients is not undermined by patients feeling uncomfortable having to share toilet and bathroom facilities.
"The new money will also allow us to focus on improving privacy and dignity in our more specialist areas, for instance in our coronary care units, where it is harder to separate patients for clinical reasons. Using new mobile technology, we will be able to move patients more freely and efficiently, granting them greater privacy, faster."
The plans are being funded by the Trust's strategic health authority, NHS London, and form part of a Department of Health pledge to eliminate mixed-sex areas.
