According to the Care Standards Act 2000, every nursing patient should have an adjustable bed. Even so, no-one has ever been prosecuted for not making this the case. Managers can site a cost benefit analysis as the reason for not providing one. A representative of the HSE said at the Moving & Handling People conference in London in 2008, that this would change in 2010. Well, the HSE have commissioned a study of the use of Electric Profiling Beds (EPBs) in Residential & Nursing Home settings, and have just released their findings.
Random Care homes were selected and a total of 1944 questionnaires were sent out with 415 being returned. 5 establishments were also selected to be visited.
Amongst other objectives, the purpose was to ascertain the true cost benefit analysis of using EPBs within care home settings.
Some of the findings make for interesting reading, for instance, only 17% of beds in care homes are EPBs. I don’t know if it is just the way I am
Reading it, but the author of the report seems surprised that fewer residential homes have EPBs than nursing homes. Also, they suggest that the reason why more nursing homes homes than residential homes use hoists and slide sheets might be because the average weight of a service user in the nursing side might be greater than that in the residential side. Another reason that I came up with (all on my own) is that more service users in residential settings have a greater degree of independence therefore requiring less nursing care - hence the term “residential” as opposed to “nursing”. Sorry for the sarcasm. It is a good report and if you are in this sector well worth a read.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr764.pdf
Electric Profiling Beds in Nursing Home & Residential Settings was commissioned by the HSE
This is a Linet - Eleganza 3
