"Dementia patients' needs on a surgical ward"

When I was in one of the surgical wards at the Queen's Medical Centre recently, there was a patient with some kind of dementia in the same bay, who required to be walked about continually when she wasn't asleep.

This meant that one member of staff at a time was constantly occupied and found it very difficult to do anything else - for example I observed one staff member trying to make beds with one hand, because the other one was holding the patient.

This situation was not fair on the staff, who could not do all their other jobs. It was not fair on the other patients, some of whom were very ill, who often could not get attention when they needed it, and it was not fair on this particular patient - I saw her fall and severely bang her head when she got out of bed unattended one night. Such patients require more specialised supervision, for their own safety.

Quite apart from this problem, the staff were always rushed off their feet and buzzers were not answered for a long time. The nurses had so many things to do and think about, they frequently forgot what they said they would do.