Creating a toolkit to improve patients’ sleep on hospital wards

Sleeping well in hospital helps people heal and recover from surgery and illness. Hospital wards can be difficult places to get a good night’s sleep. Noise, light and worry about being in an unfamiliar environment can all make sleeping difficult. 

We have completed a study to find out from patients and hospital staff what helps patients sleep and what keeps them awake. Using this information we have produced a set of recommendations to improve patients’ sleep in hospital. 

Project aims 

In this project we will use the recommendations from our previous study to create a toolkit that NHS hospital wards can use to improve patients’ sleep.  The toolkit will be a series of guides and instructions to help hospitals make the recommended changes. 

We will design the toolkit together with NHS staff, patients and community groups, who will be involved at every stage of its development.  

What we hope to achieve 

By the end of the project we aim to have a completed toolkit ready for testing on NHS hospital wards.

This project is funded by an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account.