uniforms

Recently our hospital is changing the required colors for all staff. They wanted to have the RN's distinguishable by their uniforms. A vote was taken and RNs starting on September 1, 2007 will be in black or white as a standard RN color, but black was the chosen color. Tops and bottoms may be mixed or matched, but the color must be solid, no prints or designs. Next was the color for the LPNs, they will be blue. The PCAs will be red. All departments are going to be assigned a color. I'm indifferent to all of it. :)

I think a lot has to do with enforcement of the Trusts. I know when I trained back in the middle 1980's we was provided with changing rooms if not living in residence and expected to change before and when leaving work. Now the changing rooms have gone and very little provision for changing available. Even before I finished working in the hospital enviroment and moved to the community I always took a change of clothing with me to work if I expected to go else where after work, otherwise I wore my uniform home and got changed then went out.

Must admit the male nurses working in the community in Bradford did where something similar to the women, navy trousers and white jersey. Never saw them in anything different

I am not sure if there is a thread for this somewhere, if so I apologise for starting a new one!

In Calderdale these days (2007) all our health care workers are dressed alike, in a baggy pale blue dress, so that patients and their carers, unless they have good eyesight and can read the id badges, have no idea whether they are talking to a qualified nurse or a nursing auxiliary, or for that matter, a supermarket check-out operator, (with all due respect to Nettos etc) whose blue tunic tops this new uniform resembles! Is this a ploy to deceive the public into thinking there are plenty of "nurses" around in the area. It is, in fact ,illegal to call yourself a nurse unless your name is on the Register.

When I worked on nights as a nursing sister in the community, we always worked in twos for reasons of safety. Because of this wonderful idea to dress everyone alike, none of the people we visited knew which of us was the qualified, or for that matter, if either of us was, or alternantely, whether we both were! As we worked on a first name basis, instead of being given our "titles" as we were in the past, the people we visited would have still found it difficult to distinguish between the "ranks", even after we had introduced ourselves.I know when I visited my parents in hospital a few years ago, I had no idea who was who or who I should go to for information. No -one wants to stand on ceremony or have people getting in a twist over etiquette, but when I first began my district nursing in the 1980's, we wore a smart royal blue dress, hat and coat. The hospital sisters and staff nurses wore a similar, distinctive uniform. Another point of concern is also that of infection. Although naturally district nurses must of necessity roam around in their "uniforms" in order to do their job, when I worked in a hospital in the 1970's, we were not allowed to leave the premises in our uniforms. Today you see hospital nurses and care home workers in the streets and supermarkets, either coming from, or going to work. Surely with all this fuss about MRSA and other infections, this practise should not be allowed.

Finally, what about the male nurses in the community? They wear anything from pink shirts to plus fours, yet female nurses are obliged to wear their baggy blue overall in the interests of "professionalism".

As an old, disabled R.N., I would love to see nurses return to white uniforms and caps. But I realize this option is long gone and never to appear again. As a patient, dressing nurses, aides, dietary, housekeeping in one color, different from each, would certainly be a major step forward. Then is old people would be able to see and identify everyone according to their job title.

Woody:lol2::lol2::balloons: