I agree with nitram, if this is a nursing home they should be providing the right bed.
Do not go out and spend thousands on a hospital bed. The NH may require an assessment from an Occupational Therapist (OT) before they use a hospital bed (can't think why but the Safety Elf gets everywhere)
Or they may not have supplies of these beds and need the OT assessment in order for the bed to be loaned to them for your mother's room.
We got a hospital bed on free loan via the NHS OT. My mum lives in her own home with live-in carers. Supply of equipment by OT is not means-tested so neither income or place of residence should make any difference to assessment of need. In some areas you make the approach to OT through Social Services. In our case we already had contact with OT so they made a re-assessment at our request. The OT should do a full assessment of all aids and may also be able to give/loan or recommend other items that you are not aware of.
Our hospital bed has lift and lock side rails, one of which we leave permanently in the high position so that my mum can only get out of bed on the side where we want her to do so. The bed raises and lowers and is also independently adjustable at head and foot end to help the user get in and out of bed, or to be propped up in bed. There is a little electric hand control for all this gadgetry.
My mum's carers also asked me to buy 'slide sheets' which allow carers to adjust the caree's position when they can no longer do this for themselves. It takes a lot of muscle power and co-ordination to adjust your own position in bed and my mum can't do this any more. I would recommend that you ask the NH if they already use slide sheets. You could also ask the OT if they can supply these although I would wonder at a home called itself 'nursing' if they did not already have them. Here's the type I bought:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00667RTX2/ref=pe_385721_37038051_pe_217191_31005151_M3T1_dp_1
You must take professional advice and also check with the NH management that the people who are assisting your mum are properly trained. Carers should be trained in lifting and handling people, which is different from lifting and handling loads. People wriggle, fight, pinch and scratch, get scared, suddenly turn themselves into dead weight, startle you by shouting, etc. You can injure yourself badly when moving a person without the proper training.
You can also injure the person you are helping. Do not be afraid to insist that your mum's care plan includes explicit instructions about lifting and handling her by trained carers only. Get the OT to help you with the appropriate wording. The NH management may say that all their carers are trained. However, if you put instructions in the care plan they will think twice about using an untrained carer, knowing that you are keeping a strict eye on this.
With regard to help from the OT service, it's always worth asking for anything you can get. I don't know how things differ when the patient is already in residential care but the OT will be able to advise you. Don't hold back and wait for a later time, because you'll be back in the queue for an assessment visit. Much of the equipment offered is on a loan basis. A few items incur a rental charge but most are free. We have to pay rental on a motion sensor alarm but it has proved invaluable since we got it about 3 months ago. It alerts the carers to my mum trying to get out of bed and has prevented re-occurrence of her regular falls when in her room alone at night. I personally would
expect this sort of thing to already be available in a NH. Howevert a nursing home is not the same as a NHS hospital ward so they may not have enough stocks of such aids to go round without requesting them on a patient by patient basis?