Patients experiencing raised bedside rails, doors and pathways blocked by furniture and physical interventions
People with dementia are being subjected to restraints and non-consensual sedation while in hospitals in England, according to the first study of its kind.
These restrictive practices were found to be an “embedded aspect of routine ward care”, according to the analysis, with such examples including dementia patients having their bedside rails raised, doors and pathways blocked by furniture, experiencing verbal commands to sit down or go back to bed, and physical interventions such as non-consensual sedation.
The report, by academics at the University of West London, involved analysis of 225 days of ethnographic observation across nine NHS wards in England alongside more than 1,000 interviews with healthcare professionals.
They also found that many hospital staff did not see these practices as being restrictive due to their routine use throughout NHS wards, with staff questioning how else they could care for patients with dementia to keep them safe without harming themselves or others.
