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Privacy and dignity
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Last modified date:18 June 2007
When we are ill, we want care, rest and comfort in pleasant hospital surroundings and to know that healthcare staff will do all that they can to protect our privacy and dignity. Patients have told us that this is a particular concern of theirs.
This programme has been formed to ensure that patients are treated with dignity and respect, in environments which meet their needs for personal privacy.
Single-sex accommodation
Being with other patients of the same gender is an important component of privacy and dignity. This is why we require NHS hospitals to provide single-sex accommodation for hospital inpatients.
Single-sex accommodation can take a number of forms. Hospitals may provide single-sex wards, single-sex multi-bedded bays and single rooms. Generally, hospitals provide a combination of these different types of hospital accommodation.
The NHS has made considerable progress in recent years. Today, 97 percent of NHS trusts meet single-sex accommodation standards.
Dignity on the ward
The provision of single-sex accommodation is a major milestone in the protection of patients' privacy and dignity, but is not the sole aspect that hospitals need to consider. Privacy and dignity is about far more than the segregation of men and women. As much emphasis should be placed on the care delivered within the environment as on the environment itself.
Responsibility for protecting patients' privacy and dignity does not lie with one individual or group, but with all staff, at every level of the NHS. NHS trusts should ensure that staff have the knowledge and skills to deal sensitively with the various circumstances in which the patients' privacy and dignity may be infringed.
Nightingale wards
Nightingale wards are large, open-plan wards which offer dormitory-style accommodation for hospital inpatients. Their now-outdated design offers patients very little personal privacy or peace, and do not meet patients' expectations of a modern NHS.
The national service framework for older people called for Nightingale wards for older people to be replaced or altered to provide multi-bedded bays and single rooms. The £120 million allocated by the Department of Health to support this strand of modernisation activity has enabled many older buildings to be given a new lease of life. To date, 98 percent of Nightingale wards for older people have been replaced or are being replaced as part of wider hospital building programmes. Over 350 Nightingale wards for other patient groups have also been replaced.
Essence of Care
This benchmarking resource focuses on those core and essential aspects of care that matter so much to patients and carers, and includes a specific module on privacy and dignity.
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