BED RAILS

[ALFORD]

My sister, 75 years of age, is in a care home and on two separate occasions (approx. 6 weeks apart) has been found laying on the floor by her bed It is not known whether or not she fell from the bed, got out of bed and stumbled/tripped and fell or got up from the bed and perhaps had a small TIA or similar. Fortunately , on neither occasion did she sustain any significant injury beyond bruising /grazing. I asked the home to ensure railings were put on the bed but to my surprise , they said that this was not permitted because it represented a deprivation of liberty. Their solution was to lower the bed to floor level which frankly, I find degrading for her
Is this attitude/solution "standard practice" in Care homes ?

considerbiodmp;ower th

 

[Jale]

Mum is in a nursing home and she has bed rails up all the time she is in bed, not sure if things are different in a care home though. Looking at it from the home's point of view if your mum is able to move around in the bed (mine isn;t, she has to be turned) then it may be possible for her to try and climb over the rails, I've seen someone in hospital try to do that and it resulted in the person getting stuck and hurting herself more). Sorry cannot be more helpful

 

[TNJJ]

My sister, 75 years of age, is in a care home and on two separate occasions (approx. 6 weeks apart) has been found laying on the floor by her bed It is not known whether or not she fell from the bed, got out of bed and stumbled/tripped and fell or got up from the bed and perhaps had a small TIA or similar. Fortunately , on neither occasion did she sustain any significant injury beyond bruising /grazing. I asked the home to ensure railings were put on the bed but to my surprise , they said that this was not permitted because it represented a deprivation of liberty. Their solution was to lower the bed to floor level which frankly, I find degrading for her
Is this attitude/solution "standard practice" in Care homes ?

considerbiodmp;ower th

Yes. It depends whether she has been assessed for “capacity “. If she has had an assessment for bed rails and it has been agreed then it has to be written in her care plan. If not , then they prefer lowering the bed.
Also they might be afraid of her climbing out of the bed in which case it can cause more damage to her .

 

[LouJT]

Hi, sometimes it is standard practice to lower the bed and also use crash mats. It may be worth looking into why she is getting up? Is she unsettled or confused.
the use of bed rails can be classed as a restraint so care staff would try and avoid this as much as possible. Could you ask staff to do more checks on her?

 

[Baker17]

My sister, 75 years of age, is in a care home and on two separate occasions (approx. 6 weeks apart) has been found laying on the floor by her bed It is not known whether or not she fell from the bed, got out of bed and stumbled/tripped and fell or got up from the bed and perhaps had a small TIA or similar. Fortunately , on neither occasion did she sustain any significant injury beyond bruising /grazing. I asked the home to ensure railings were put on the bed but to my surprise , they said that this was not permitted because it represented a deprivation of liberty. Their solution was to lower the bed to floor level which frankly, I find degrading for her
Is this attitude/solution "standard practice" in Care homes ?

considerbiodmp;ower th

@ALFORD my husband started to have falls out of bed in his home luckily no serious injuries. He doesn’t have capacity and he was supplied with a bed which is lowered each night. I didn’t consider it wouldn’t be dignified for him because his safety is the most important thing. Since he has had this bed there have been no more incidents. Sometimes I’ve found during my long journey with this illness you have to put safety first as sadly the person has no awareness of their own safety. When my husband was in ICU after a cardiac arrest thirteen years ago there were bed rails put in place because he was an induced coma, but, as he was brought out of the coma he tried several times to climb over the rails which was very frightening to watch so I would rather the lowered bed than rails.