Staff on the short stay older people’s ward at Stepping Hill Hospital are today launching a ‘dressed is best’ initiative by swapping their uniforms for pyjamas.

A team of therapists, nurses and healthcare assistants will also attend ward rounds and bed meetings throughout the week to promote the initiative, offer guidance on how to help patients to get up, dressed and walking and encourage staff to ask themselves: ‘Why is my patient in bed?’.

‘Dressed is best’ is part of the national #endPJparalysis campaign, which highlights the impact of patients being left in pyjamas or hospital gowns for any longer than necessary. Brian Dolan a professor of nursing has spread the campaign on Twitter across the UK. While patients of all ages can benefit from being more active, it’s particularly important for older people.

‘Dressed is best’ aims to increase the number of ward patients that are sat out of bed at lunchtime and in their own clothes. Once launched on the short stay older people`s ward,  the following days will see two other wards, B6 and A11, take up the baton with the plan to roll out the initiative across all hospital wards in the long term.

Steph Brown, physiotherapist team lead who is part of the project team behind ‘dressed is best’, said: “It is often the case that when patients arrived in hospital, they stay in their pyjamas or hospital gown until they are discharged. Our ‘dressed is best’ initiative aims to get patients up, dressed and moving so they can recover more quickly and get home and back to doing the things they love. By wearing pyjamas, we want staff to see how vulnerable people can feel when they are on a ward and how being dressed, sat in a chair and keeping moving is absolutely the best thing to help in their recovery.”

Alison Lynch, Director of Nursing and Quality at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Stepping Hill Hospital, said: “The aim of ‘dressed is best’ is to ensure a sustained improvement to the patient journey and to ultimately change the culture on hospital wards. It should not be the norm for patients to be in bed in pyjamas but to be up and active in their recovery as far as they possibly can.

“We are dedicated to supporting improvements to the care we deliver and most importantly, we want to ensure that hospital stays are efficient and effective, encouraging a speedy recovery that can lead to patients returning home sooner.”