Our goodnight guide

Being in hospital is a very anxious time for patients and their loved ones, and we know that getting a good night’s sleep is important for recovery. Hospitals are busy places and sometimes we need to disturb people during the night for their care and treatment, but we need to make every effort to ensure people can maintain their sleep pattern as much as possible. To help us do this and as a reminder we have developed a ‘Goodnight guide’ for staff and patients as follows:

What you can do

• Prepare for sleep as you normally would—routines are important
• Get everything ready that you might need in the night so it is close at hand
• Ask our staff if there is anything you need— pain relief, eye masks and ear-plugs
• Keep noise to a minimum: listen to your TV through headphones, put your phone on silent and take telephone calls away from shared areas
• Turn down your light when you are ready to go to sleep

What we can do

• Stick to ward visiting times to allow patients to rest
• Remind the patient it is night time and check if they need anything to have a good night
• Reduce noise, bustle and non-urgent activity from midnight until 6am
• Talk quietly to each other and patients at this time
• Have everything required ready in the patient area
• Reduce bright lighting at night time
• Answer any buzzers or alarms promptly