Heartbeat: But first …. a drink

August 25, 2021

One of the biggest challenges faced in ward environments is ensuring that patients remain well hydrated. The simple task of ensuring that a patient has enough to drink can have a significant impact on their clinical outcomes, recovery times and overall experience. Whilst jugs of water can be plentiful, how do we ensure that patients take the time to hydrate? This is the focus of the latest campaign set to spread across our Trust in four simple words – but first….a drink.

Confused and disorientated patients can quickly deteriorate if they do not take in enough fluids and this can complicate their hospital stay with kidney infections and constipation. We can all make a difference by following a simple rule, when you interact with a patient who is able to drink safely, take a minute to offer them a drink before you move on to the job at hand.

To find out more about the campaign, Heartbeat spoke to Deputy Medical Director, Dr Chizo Agwu, she said: “Whilst we always ensure that patients have access to jugs of water and their fluid intake is recorded, we can often forget that patients can become confused and disorientated when they are in our care, and simple things like having a drink can simply slip their mind.

“Likewise, in a hectic ward environment where we are all focused on our clinical tasks it is easy to forget the basics and assume patients are hydrated, whilst there might be a refreshing jug of water within arm’s reach of them, are they actually remembering to take a drink?

“We want to ensure that we build a culture in our organisation where regardless of your role on the ward, when you meet a patient we take the opportunity to ensure their basic needs are taken care of. In the case of fluid intake, simply taking a moment to offer the patient a drink (after confirming that they are able to drink safely), checking they have a supply of fresh water or simply brewing them up a cup of tea can be play a pivotal role.

“We want our colleagues to care for our patients holistically, and understand that everything we do has an impact on their care, their experience and their safety.”

Colleagues in community wards have taken the initiative a step further by applying a traffic light system to patient jugs denoting whether a patient has been taking enough drinks to keep well hydrated or needs further support. Sharing her thoughts on the work, Matron, Justine Irish said: “But first a drink and the traffic light system for the water jugs was introduced following a UTI mortality project group meeting that I attended. It was mentioned that a few trusts had implemented the idea to tackle avoidable UTIs and encourage hydration amongst at risk patients. So I thought this ties in really nicely with our nutrition and hydration work, and our safety huddle actions and priorities so let’s give it a try.

“Facilities have been very supportive and as imagined, staff at Rowley are always very eager to try anything that increases the quality and safety of care we afford our patients. The process is quite simple, if you see a patient’s water jug with a red lid at 1pm, you should be looking at your patient’s input, they may have had a few milky drinks that count towards their fluid intake but once they have taken in 750mls or more we can move them to a green lid.”