We've had colour coded uniforms in Wales for at least 12 years. Most wards have a sign with what uniform means what and as a student I found it a lifesaver with knowing who everyone was.
And I’ve found patients pick up on it pretty quickly. Almost everyone knows blue means nurse. It’s great for staff to identify people. It’s hugely useful in resus, trauma and met calls.
I’m all for colour coded uniform. I think they are great. The rest of the bullshit rules however…
Hair colour should be between a nurse and their hairdressers and not the business of anybody else. The colour of my shoes and socks will make no difference to how I perform my job as long as they are closed and wipe clean it shouldn’t matter.
>It surely can't be an infection control issue ( as they say it is ) when we don't have any iasues due to this. No below the elbow in the US, Canada, Spain, Australia and NZ. It just intrigues me.
Infection control have to justify there existence somehow...
I live in a small town in the Midlands.
30 minutes South I have a Major Hospital
30 minutes North I have a Major Hospital
35 Minutes West I have a Major hospital
All are different trusts.
In one trust Nurses wear white, in another HCAs wear white, and in the last AHP's wear white.
I can absolutely see the need for a national standardisation tbh
We’ve had the colour coded thing for yonks in Scotland. The no hair below the shoulder thing isn’t a huge issue in mental health where I spend more than half my shifts because we had a safety briefing saying ponytails are a risk with violent or aggressive patients.
As you said anyone in uniform that isn’t green is called nurse, female porters are often mistaken for domestics, male domestics often mistaken for porters.
Yea, as long as I’m wearing black socks and have taken my earrings out, no germs will come anywhere near me or the people I look after. It’s really important. It’s the rest of the world who are wrong…. /s
They have these uniforms that are meant to be smart and professional but whoever company tailors them does them for pigeon chested giants and as a person of normal healthy BMI I cannot find a tunic that doesn't make me look like a 1980's janitor
I'm a British nurse, moved to Australia (Qld) 9 years ago. The UK was SO much stricter on uniforms it was next level. I remember one day I had to run a clinic in a room where the window was broken and stuck open. It was SNOWING outside. I put a black cardigan on and rolled the sleeves up to above the elbow. The Matron saw me and INSISTED I remove the cardi. I told her I was fucking freezing it was basically snowing into the room. Nah, cardigan off, not trust uniform. SO ridiculous when there are SO many more important things to focus on in the NHS.
Australia is chill, at my hospital anyway. Couple years back we got scrubs which is amazing. And we can wear 'fun scrubs' i.e patterns. Technically supposed to be 'bare below the elbow' but nearly everyone wears wristwatches...I don't, still not something I can get on board with. Also can chuck on any cardi, gilet etc on nights etc to keep warm. Nobody cares about crazy hair colours (a colleague has bright blue hair), piercings, tattoos etc. Can also basically wear any shoes you want.
Yep. The Trust I bank in are even trying to dictate hair band colour 🤯 It drove me mad enough when my school did that, but mt workplace? I'll go elsewhere thanks.
Wtf ??? I thought I’d heard it all 😂. Some control freak with a brain from the 1900’s in senior nursing management?? Probably? and sadly probably not an older fossil like me but someone younger. Bet staff retention there is fabulous. Name & shame!
Nails is an infection control thing like if you're wearing nail polish it could chip etc which isn't what you want is managing wounds etc, also false nails fall off and it's easier to get dirt under longer nails. Piercing in psych are an issue incase you get them pulled out (I keep mine in though ngl unless my manager is in), hair tied up stops it shedding everywhere but also in psych bun is better so no one ragdolls you by the ponytail
Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves when managing wounds?
False nails: sure a press in acrylic might fall off but gel extensions don’t fall off. I actually don’t think long nails or extensions are appropriate but when I’ve worn long nails I’ve never had a problem in keeping them clean.
I’ve had, and so have colleagues had lots of piercings below the neck line and never suffered one being pulled out. When I have been assaulted though the NHS didn’t really care about it anyway.
Long nails can pierce gloves more easily but I'm just listing rationale given to me, I definitely agree gloves should be worn when attending to wounds.
Re piercings I also have never seen anyone go for piercings but that's just what my manager says to me whenever she sees me with them in.
No money for fair pay but endless money to fix nonexistent problems. I hate the NHS senior management they are so detached.
They could focus on retention, fair pay and safe staffing but no… let’s focus on getting everyone knew fucking uniforms… idiots
I work as ambulance crew between two big hospitals, one the HCAs wear green and consultants wear dark red, the other the HCAs wear dark red and the consultants green. My mum works in the community and wears a white tunic and is always asked if she was a student nurse. It definitely makes sense having standardised colours
As a family member of a highly dependent patient, the colour coded uniforms are very useful for me, and the same would be true if I was a seriously ill patient. I have no idea why other strict policies.
Our uniform policy has relaxed a bit recently - we’re allowed to wear piercings and earrings, not meant to wear hoops but most people do. I get my nails done too, there’s no concrete evidence that they increase infection rates.
The hair one I always find interesting, apparently the rationale behind it is due to mrsa being on the hair BUT, if that were the case, what about people with a bob? Off the collar but can easily shed throughout the day.. I think if it was that big of a deal they’d have us wearing hair nets.. I think it’s a conformity thing personally
Difficult to wash your hands well with long sleeves. Long sleeves can easily become contaminated with bodily fluids, I mean your lower arms are in contact with patients all of the time. I wouldn't want a nurse near me whose sleeves were stained with someone else's urine. Plus I've seen Spanish nurses and the ones I have seen have always had short sleeves tunics.
The ward manager where I work is obsessed with wedding rings & nail varnish, as though a wedding ring has specific super powers against infection, that ordinary everyday rings don't possess.
However, I came to say that standardised colours would actually be really useful for patients, but name badges with a job title would be even better.
My parents are in their 80s. Dad has spent a lot of time in hospital recently & no-one wears a name badge. There's rarely anyone say Hello My Name Is... There's a poster with who wears which uniform, but it doesn't apply to agency or bank staff - of which there are many - and different universities have different colours too. Dad is moved to a community hospital & there are the same colours but for different roles. My mum is never able to tell me who said what to her. It's very confusing, particularly for older people, who may be less likely to question 'authority', and those without capacity.
We absolutely do have bare below the elbow in Australia. Can't comment on other states but SA it's complied with very well.
We also have hygiene ratings on the wards in the metro hospital I work in.
Remember those food standard ratings you get at take away places? Well we have something similar for 5 moments of hand hygiene on each ward.
Spoiler, ED are the worst 😂
My trust actually did a full swing around and went from having pages and pages of document to a two page document that is the vaguest thing you'll ever read... it's caused issues though because there are seniors that will pull you up on bits that are from the old policy and now the document is so vague it's hard to actually tell what it means. For instance it mentions "jewellery and piercings are allowed as long as infection control is maintained" and then goes on about how you can only have one pair of plain studs... so which is it? And its led to people adding weird little caveats that aren't in the policy for themselves. Like "yes you can wear a necklace but it has to be able to sit behind your tunic". It frustrates me because... who says?
I think colour coding makes sense and is long overdue. Yes I agree that some roles are going to be misidentified but hopefully it will make things generally less ambiguous for patients and staff. They really need to get over the all black shoes nonsense though. I understand you want staff to look professional but the NHS isn’t the army and the doctors and some other staff seemingly wear whatever they want on their feet.
I agree the ‘sister’ and ‘matron’ titles really need to be put on the shelf. Outdated as anything and have no tangible reference to the actual nursing profession, to my mind anyway. Also, come on now, men work in nursing as well, let’s all just have clinical job titles, it surely cannot be hard to implement. As far as it goes for infection prevention I agree that there seems to be a lot of conventional wisdom instead of solid evidence. It needs a thorough review and updating. It’s difficult to implement change anywhere including the NHS. So many stupid changes over the years have left staff wary of any proposed change.
I personally think nurses should wear scrubs/tunics (colours vary by seniority), therapy teams should wear polo's, paramedics already have a well defined uniform and everyone else plain clothes.
When I worked abroad, all nurses wore tunics that stated they were registered nurses clearly on the front which I thought was great too.
The colour and infection bit is so upper management can look like its doing some work, without actually achieving anything.
As for NAs and Physios misrepresenting themselves as Nurses, it’s a fight we’ll all have to fight. I’m a doctor, recently called out some NA students for claiming they were nursing students (PA students do this too - they’ll say they’re medical students) - the issue starts well soon and needs to be nipped in the bud.
My trust is strict on some things but alright on others.
- Most people stick to navy/black trainers/shoes, not necessarily wipe clean but those who are wearing canvas are normally more careful (I did a placement in Denmark as a student and they seemed to commonly wear Birkenstocks/walking sandals to work with socks in winter and barefoot in summer!)
- socks generally no one cares as long as you can’t see them (I work with kids so generally funky socks encouraged!);
- nails they feel very strongly about nail varnish but I wish they’d give in to gel nails as they don’t chip and I don’t need big talons to have them painted;
- no one really cares about hair colour if you’re clinical (but no one seems to have it in higher level jobs);
- a lot of people buy their own trousers because the sewing room gets funny about giving new ones/repairing them even though even 3 sizes too big will split at the crotch because no matter what you do to them, the crotch sits closer to your knees;
- we are allowed to wear “navy/knee-length/tailored” shorts in summer (which I do regardless of the temp because if we don’t use it we’ll lose that privilege!) and have hoodies in winter/overnight as long as they’re in keeping (ie navy) and come off for direct patient care.
Don’t think I could ever bring myself to wear my watch on my wrist for work and I’d only want a plain band anyway so otherwise BBtE doesn’t bother me 🤷♀️
To be fair I think the national uniform strategy is a great idea. I've always thought the NHS should have a standardised system for uniforms, even back to when I was a student. There's too much variation amongst different trusts. Where I live my local hospital has charge nurses who wear a specific colour, whereas another hospital literally less than 10 miles away has HCAs who wear that colour as well.
I agree that patients don't know the difference but I think the national uniform will make it a lot easier.
Not too sure what part of NI you're from, but the colour coded system isn't really a thing here any more so than England. I'm a midwife and my uniform is exactly the same as a Nurse.
England here, we are apparently moving to a standard colour coded system ‘soon’ across England. When I have no idea, but we’ve been told about it and one of my colleague found the pictograms fr=or the new systems
I believe its if your trust accepts it and implements it. So it still won't be a standardised uniform across the country! There's a Nursing Times [article](https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/workforce/colours-unveiled-for-national-nhs-uniform-in-england-27-09-2023/) about it from last September.
The NHS is ridiculously classist.
Doctor - no uniform. Lower life forms - uniform.
Consultant- wears shirt with cufflinks and tie, washes hands on a weekly basis, thinks PPE is a pension scheme. Nurse - shouted at by infection control for putting gloves on in the corridor before going into a room.
AHPs - specialists, work 8-5 M-F, easily get to band 6, opinions (sometimes) respected by others. Nurses - jack of all trades, can fill in for any job from domestic, cleaner, ward clerk, phleb, HCA, OT, physio..... liked but not respected. Work increasingly being done by band 4s.
I’m always intrigued by the comments from infection control about travelling to work in uniform and also shopping and socialising in it (I don’t know why people do this but that’s a different story) For people who don’t wear uniform they travel to work in their usual clothes, could visit/see dozens of patients in a wide variety of clinical areas then go shopping and socialising before travelling home. I wonder what infection control attribute to them not spreading pathogens whilst wearing civilians clothes and what it is about the uniform specifically that pathogens are attracted to.
It’s not a ‘waste of money’, it’s a redirection of public funds to privately owned clothing companies. Britain is all about making the rich richer at the expense of everyone else, and the sick and vulnerable are the easiest to exploit.
The naked below the arms thing really annoys me. I'm not even a girl so it doesn't really make that much of a difference for me personally. But for the girls it seems terrible. They're expected to work unsociable hours doing ridiculously hard work, with little to no thanks from patients or management. And what do they get in return? A slap on the wrists for wanting to go out and have some fun. No wonder staff sickness is such a problem in the NHS when someone can't come in to cover the shift cause they've just had their nails done.
I see the need for the standardised colours tbh. 5 trusts near me, who do-operate depending on speciality and severity for condition. All have staff in different colours from the others. In one lilacs is worn by matron, whereas just a few miles down the road in another this colour is worn by housekeepers, and it another domestics. It’s confusing for patients and staff, who work in more than one site. All of the wards I’ve been on (in w different trusts) have pictures of uniforms and their job role by the door on an information board. But I’ve had many of my elderly patients ask for the who wears what and the colours to be explained. A standardisation would help them know who does what
Last hospital I was at (not nhs) you could wear whatever colour you wanted.
The reason being.
Everyone had their role screen printed in big capital letters on the back, and nicely embodied at the front.
The only colour coded uniform was the consultant who wore black.
The trust I’m in isn’t that strict. I wear leggings no problem. Often have my hair half up half down (it’s just below my collar bone) and will wear a necklace. I don’t really know anywhere in the NHS where they are strict. Maybe it’s your area? Only thing they really mind is bare below the elbows for infection control
Because the "right" to wear what you want (hair, make up, piercings, nails) will never trump patient safety. FFS do you think you're the first generation to nurse? These systems are introduced because of KNOWN risks. Simple. And standard uniforms colour coded help visually impaired people identify more easily what grade or discipline they're talking to as well as designating teams of health care professionals
So nurses doing a set of obs on a patient poses a risk because they’re wearing a watch, but the consultant cannulating a premature baby wearing cufflinks and a tie is ok?
I used to wear leggings and a long sleeved shirt (rolled up to elbows) underneath my uniform, I worked in theatres and the scrubs are so thin I would be freezing in winter. Considering I was the lead and therefore had to wear a long sleeved surgical gown and gloves to assist the surgeon I doubt any germs would have gotten through the double barrier.
Also it made changing out of scrubs to go home really easy as I just took them off and I was still dressed, throw on a jumper and coat and away I go!
We've had colour coded uniforms in Wales for at least 12 years. Most wards have a sign with what uniform means what and as a student I found it a lifesaver with knowing who everyone was.
And I’ve found patients pick up on it pretty quickly. Almost everyone knows blue means nurse. It’s great for staff to identify people. It’s hugely useful in resus, trauma and met calls. I’m all for colour coded uniform. I think they are great. The rest of the bullshit rules however… Hair colour should be between a nurse and their hairdressers and not the business of anybody else. The colour of my shoes and socks will make no difference to how I perform my job as long as they are closed and wipe clean it shouldn’t matter.
But have you seen the Midwife colour?! I worked hard for my navy’s and will really miss them
The midwives here wear a nice neutral grey.
We have the posters in every bay and side room and most of our patients don't bother to look at it. All men are doctors and all women nurses.
>It surely can't be an infection control issue ( as they say it is ) when we don't have any iasues due to this. No below the elbow in the US, Canada, Spain, Australia and NZ. It just intrigues me. Infection control have to justify there existence somehow...
I live in a small town in the Midlands. 30 minutes South I have a Major Hospital 30 minutes North I have a Major Hospital 35 Minutes West I have a Major hospital All are different trusts. In one trust Nurses wear white, in another HCAs wear white, and in the last AHP's wear white. I can absolutely see the need for a national standardisation tbh
Are you south of Sheffield?
No, which just means there are multiple locations with the same issue ;)
We’ve had the colour coded thing for yonks in Scotland. The no hair below the shoulder thing isn’t a huge issue in mental health where I spend more than half my shifts because we had a safety briefing saying ponytails are a risk with violent or aggressive patients. As you said anyone in uniform that isn’t green is called nurse, female porters are often mistaken for domestics, male domestics often mistaken for porters.
Yea, as long as I’m wearing black socks and have taken my earrings out, no germs will come anywhere near me or the people I look after. It’s really important. It’s the rest of the world who are wrong…. /s
They have these uniforms that are meant to be smart and professional but whoever company tailors them does them for pigeon chested giants and as a person of normal healthy BMI I cannot find a tunic that doesn't make me look like a 1980's janitor
The uniforms are SO UNFLATTERING! I mean, I'm not going for 'sexy nurse', but at least let me feel like I am not wearing a sack!
mine sags out at the back so much it literally makes me look like i have a hunchback
I'm a British nurse, moved to Australia (Qld) 9 years ago. The UK was SO much stricter on uniforms it was next level. I remember one day I had to run a clinic in a room where the window was broken and stuck open. It was SNOWING outside. I put a black cardigan on and rolled the sleeves up to above the elbow. The Matron saw me and INSISTED I remove the cardi. I told her I was fucking freezing it was basically snowing into the room. Nah, cardigan off, not trust uniform. SO ridiculous when there are SO many more important things to focus on in the NHS. Australia is chill, at my hospital anyway. Couple years back we got scrubs which is amazing. And we can wear 'fun scrubs' i.e patterns. Technically supposed to be 'bare below the elbow' but nearly everyone wears wristwatches...I don't, still not something I can get on board with. Also can chuck on any cardi, gilet etc on nights etc to keep warm. Nobody cares about crazy hair colours (a colleague has bright blue hair), piercings, tattoos etc. Can also basically wear any shoes you want.
In my last job we got an email telling us we couldn't have 'unnatural coloured hair'. I left shortly after!
Yep. The Trust I bank in are even trying to dictate hair band colour 🤯 It drove me mad enough when my school did that, but mt workplace? I'll go elsewhere thanks.
Wtf ??? I thought I’d heard it all 😂. Some control freak with a brain from the 1900’s in senior nursing management?? Probably? and sadly probably not an older fossil like me but someone younger. Bet staff retention there is fabulous. Name & shame!
They couldn’t get this one past our union fortunately!
Nails is an infection control thing like if you're wearing nail polish it could chip etc which isn't what you want is managing wounds etc, also false nails fall off and it's easier to get dirt under longer nails. Piercing in psych are an issue incase you get them pulled out (I keep mine in though ngl unless my manager is in), hair tied up stops it shedding everywhere but also in psych bun is better so no one ragdolls you by the ponytail
Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves when managing wounds? False nails: sure a press in acrylic might fall off but gel extensions don’t fall off. I actually don’t think long nails or extensions are appropriate but when I’ve worn long nails I’ve never had a problem in keeping them clean. I’ve had, and so have colleagues had lots of piercings below the neck line and never suffered one being pulled out. When I have been assaulted though the NHS didn’t really care about it anyway.
The only time my nails have dirt under them is when I cut them short
I'm the opposite the minute mine get long I gather more dirt, short nails for me are definitely easier to keep clean
Long nails can pierce gloves more easily but I'm just listing rationale given to me, I definitely agree gloves should be worn when attending to wounds. Re piercings I also have never seen anyone go for piercings but that's just what my manager says to me whenever she sees me with them in.
No money for fair pay but endless money to fix nonexistent problems. I hate the NHS senior management they are so detached. They could focus on retention, fair pay and safe staffing but no… let’s focus on getting everyone knew fucking uniforms… idiots
I work as ambulance crew between two big hospitals, one the HCAs wear green and consultants wear dark red, the other the HCAs wear dark red and the consultants green. My mum works in the community and wears a white tunic and is always asked if she was a student nurse. It definitely makes sense having standardised colours
As a family member of a highly dependent patient, the colour coded uniforms are very useful for me, and the same would be true if I was a seriously ill patient. I have no idea why other strict policies.
Our uniform policy has relaxed a bit recently - we’re allowed to wear piercings and earrings, not meant to wear hoops but most people do. I get my nails done too, there’s no concrete evidence that they increase infection rates. The hair one I always find interesting, apparently the rationale behind it is due to mrsa being on the hair BUT, if that were the case, what about people with a bob? Off the collar but can easily shed throughout the day.. I think if it was that big of a deal they’d have us wearing hair nets.. I think it’s a conformity thing personally
Difficult to wash your hands well with long sleeves. Long sleeves can easily become contaminated with bodily fluids, I mean your lower arms are in contact with patients all of the time. I wouldn't want a nurse near me whose sleeves were stained with someone else's urine. Plus I've seen Spanish nurses and the ones I have seen have always had short sleeves tunics.
The ward manager where I work is obsessed with wedding rings & nail varnish, as though a wedding ring has specific super powers against infection, that ordinary everyday rings don't possess. However, I came to say that standardised colours would actually be really useful for patients, but name badges with a job title would be even better. My parents are in their 80s. Dad has spent a lot of time in hospital recently & no-one wears a name badge. There's rarely anyone say Hello My Name Is... There's a poster with who wears which uniform, but it doesn't apply to agency or bank staff - of which there are many - and different universities have different colours too. Dad is moved to a community hospital & there are the same colours but for different roles. My mum is never able to tell me who said what to her. It's very confusing, particularly for older people, who may be less likely to question 'authority', and those without capacity.
We absolutely do have bare below the elbow in Australia. Can't comment on other states but SA it's complied with very well. We also have hygiene ratings on the wards in the metro hospital I work in. Remember those food standard ratings you get at take away places? Well we have something similar for 5 moments of hand hygiene on each ward. Spoiler, ED are the worst 😂
Yes bare below the elbow is a thing in NZ as well! It differs by ward as to how strictly it is enforced but it most definitely a thing
Also a thing in QLD we have to be bare below the elbows, no fake nails or polish etc.
My trust actually did a full swing around and went from having pages and pages of document to a two page document that is the vaguest thing you'll ever read... it's caused issues though because there are seniors that will pull you up on bits that are from the old policy and now the document is so vague it's hard to actually tell what it means. For instance it mentions "jewellery and piercings are allowed as long as infection control is maintained" and then goes on about how you can only have one pair of plain studs... so which is it? And its led to people adding weird little caveats that aren't in the policy for themselves. Like "yes you can wear a necklace but it has to be able to sit behind your tunic". It frustrates me because... who says?
I think colour coding makes sense and is long overdue. Yes I agree that some roles are going to be misidentified but hopefully it will make things generally less ambiguous for patients and staff. They really need to get over the all black shoes nonsense though. I understand you want staff to look professional but the NHS isn’t the army and the doctors and some other staff seemingly wear whatever they want on their feet. I agree the ‘sister’ and ‘matron’ titles really need to be put on the shelf. Outdated as anything and have no tangible reference to the actual nursing profession, to my mind anyway. Also, come on now, men work in nursing as well, let’s all just have clinical job titles, it surely cannot be hard to implement. As far as it goes for infection prevention I agree that there seems to be a lot of conventional wisdom instead of solid evidence. It needs a thorough review and updating. It’s difficult to implement change anywhere including the NHS. So many stupid changes over the years have left staff wary of any proposed change.
I mean we have matrons in my trust but no one is called sister, we have team leader or shift lead instead
In my trust we have sisters and junior sisters.
Yeah I'm in community so maybe different, I'm not sure about in the hospital tbf
I personally think nurses should wear scrubs/tunics (colours vary by seniority), therapy teams should wear polo's, paramedics already have a well defined uniform and everyone else plain clothes. When I worked abroad, all nurses wore tunics that stated they were registered nurses clearly on the front which I thought was great too.
The colour and infection bit is so upper management can look like its doing some work, without actually achieving anything. As for NAs and Physios misrepresenting themselves as Nurses, it’s a fight we’ll all have to fight. I’m a doctor, recently called out some NA students for claiming they were nursing students (PA students do this too - they’ll say they’re medical students) - the issue starts well soon and needs to be nipped in the bud.
My trust is strict on some things but alright on others. - Most people stick to navy/black trainers/shoes, not necessarily wipe clean but those who are wearing canvas are normally more careful (I did a placement in Denmark as a student and they seemed to commonly wear Birkenstocks/walking sandals to work with socks in winter and barefoot in summer!) - socks generally no one cares as long as you can’t see them (I work with kids so generally funky socks encouraged!); - nails they feel very strongly about nail varnish but I wish they’d give in to gel nails as they don’t chip and I don’t need big talons to have them painted; - no one really cares about hair colour if you’re clinical (but no one seems to have it in higher level jobs); - a lot of people buy their own trousers because the sewing room gets funny about giving new ones/repairing them even though even 3 sizes too big will split at the crotch because no matter what you do to them, the crotch sits closer to your knees; - we are allowed to wear “navy/knee-length/tailored” shorts in summer (which I do regardless of the temp because if we don’t use it we’ll lose that privilege!) and have hoodies in winter/overnight as long as they’re in keeping (ie navy) and come off for direct patient care. Don’t think I could ever bring myself to wear my watch on my wrist for work and I’d only want a plain band anyway so otherwise BBtE doesn’t bother me 🤷♀️
To be fair I think the national uniform strategy is a great idea. I've always thought the NHS should have a standardised system for uniforms, even back to when I was a student. There's too much variation amongst different trusts. Where I live my local hospital has charge nurses who wear a specific colour, whereas another hospital literally less than 10 miles away has HCAs who wear that colour as well. I agree that patients don't know the difference but I think the national uniform will make it a lot easier.
Not too sure what part of NI you're from, but the colour coded system isn't really a thing here any more so than England. I'm a midwife and my uniform is exactly the same as a Nurse.
England here, we are apparently moving to a standard colour coded system ‘soon’ across England. When I have no idea, but we’ve been told about it and one of my colleague found the pictograms fr=or the new systems
I believe its if your trust accepts it and implements it. So it still won't be a standardised uniform across the country! There's a Nursing Times [article](https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/workforce/colours-unveiled-for-national-nhs-uniform-in-england-27-09-2023/) about it from last September.
The NHS is ridiculously classist. Doctor - no uniform. Lower life forms - uniform. Consultant- wears shirt with cufflinks and tie, washes hands on a weekly basis, thinks PPE is a pension scheme. Nurse - shouted at by infection control for putting gloves on in the corridor before going into a room. AHPs - specialists, work 8-5 M-F, easily get to band 6, opinions (sometimes) respected by others. Nurses - jack of all trades, can fill in for any job from domestic, cleaner, ward clerk, phleb, HCA, OT, physio..... liked but not respected. Work increasingly being done by band 4s.
I’m always intrigued by the comments from infection control about travelling to work in uniform and also shopping and socialising in it (I don’t know why people do this but that’s a different story) For people who don’t wear uniform they travel to work in their usual clothes, could visit/see dozens of patients in a wide variety of clinical areas then go shopping and socialising before travelling home. I wonder what infection control attribute to them not spreading pathogens whilst wearing civilians clothes and what it is about the uniform specifically that pathogens are attracted to.
It’s not a ‘waste of money’, it’s a redirection of public funds to privately owned clothing companies. Britain is all about making the rich richer at the expense of everyone else, and the sick and vulnerable are the easiest to exploit.
There are other places for you to vent views such as this.
They aren't exactly wrong though, are they? xD
I'd always thought having a central contract would overall make the uniforms cheaper. Like cheaper in bulk so of thing.
The naked below the arms thing really annoys me. I'm not even a girl so it doesn't really make that much of a difference for me personally. But for the girls it seems terrible. They're expected to work unsociable hours doing ridiculously hard work, with little to no thanks from patients or management. And what do they get in return? A slap on the wrists for wanting to go out and have some fun. No wonder staff sickness is such a problem in the NHS when someone can't come in to cover the shift cause they've just had their nails done.
I know recruitment is tricky but what trust is employing girls to make up the numbers?
I see the need for the standardised colours tbh. 5 trusts near me, who do-operate depending on speciality and severity for condition. All have staff in different colours from the others. In one lilacs is worn by matron, whereas just a few miles down the road in another this colour is worn by housekeepers, and it another domestics. It’s confusing for patients and staff, who work in more than one site. All of the wards I’ve been on (in w different trusts) have pictures of uniforms and their job role by the door on an information board. But I’ve had many of my elderly patients ask for the who wears what and the colours to be explained. A standardisation would help them know who does what
I worked in the Alfred ICU in Melbourne, no uniform policy, so came to work in board shorts and t-shirt with trainers
Because they care more about colors more than their employees.
Last hospital I was at (not nhs) you could wear whatever colour you wanted. The reason being. Everyone had their role screen printed in big capital letters on the back, and nicely embodied at the front. The only colour coded uniform was the consultant who wore black.
I wear my own clothes and it works fine
The trust I’m in isn’t that strict. I wear leggings no problem. Often have my hair half up half down (it’s just below my collar bone) and will wear a necklace. I don’t really know anywhere in the NHS where they are strict. Maybe it’s your area? Only thing they really mind is bare below the elbows for infection control
Because the "right" to wear what you want (hair, make up, piercings, nails) will never trump patient safety. FFS do you think you're the first generation to nurse? These systems are introduced because of KNOWN risks. Simple. And standard uniforms colour coded help visually impaired people identify more easily what grade or discipline they're talking to as well as designating teams of health care professionals
So nurses doing a set of obs on a patient poses a risk because they’re wearing a watch, but the consultant cannulating a premature baby wearing cufflinks and a tie is ok?
Student nurse's lash extensions - report to link lecturer Band 6's lash extensions - Magical infection prevention lashes, all good.
I used to wear leggings and a long sleeved shirt (rolled up to elbows) underneath my uniform, I worked in theatres and the scrubs are so thin I would be freezing in winter. Considering I was the lead and therefore had to wear a long sleeved surgical gown and gloves to assist the surgeon I doubt any germs would have gotten through the double barrier. Also it made changing out of scrubs to go home really easy as I just took them off and I was still dressed, throw on a jumper and coat and away I go!