Night staff special issue: My Home Life

1. Quality of sleep and rest is hugely important for residents. Supporting residents to sleep can have a positive impact upon their wellbeing during the day.
2. Individualised night care plans: Use night time care plans to assess and communicate the needs of each resident. Include regular updates on pain and continence.
3. Keyworkers: Allocating staff to work with individual residents (night key worker system) can increase support for residents at night.
4. Noise and light: Although sometimes unavoidable, constant assessment on how noise and light may be affecting residents sleep is recommended.
5. Emotional support: Night staff play a crucial role in offering support to residents who struggle to sleep at nights and need someone to talk to for reassurance.
6. Relatives support: Find a system to allow night staff and relatives to keep in touch.
7. Feeling valued: Night staff can feel overlooked in terms of support and training. Managers need to make time for night staff to support them at work and identify their training needs.
8. Team-building: The divide between day staff and night staff can make team building difficult. Take time to communicate across these staff groups. Having staff work across day and night shifts can be helpful in minimising the divide.
9. Appropriate Training: night staff sometimes feel overlooked when it comes to training, partly because it takes place during the day.
10. Keeping healthy: Providing night time care on a regular basis can make night staff more vulnerable to health problems. Have clear information available on how night staff can keep healthy when working nights.

Read the MY HOME LIFE Issue 9 in full: