Spare NHS patients humiliation of backless gowns, doctors urge

DOCTORS have launched a “down with the gown” campaign, urging NHS hospitals to stop asking patients to wear undignified backless garments which leave their rears exposed.

For decades, it has been standard practice to offer those undergoing intimate examinations a robe which ties at the back, but leaves much of the body on view. Now leading physicians are calling on the health service to stop humiliating patients at a time when they are vulnerable.

Prof David Oliver, past vice-president of the Royal College of Physicians, said such gowns were often used for no good reason, in a way that left patients embarrassed and uncomfortable.

The hospital consultant, who was previously national director for older people, said the design of the gowns, which are open at the back, left far too much on show.

“The effect is to leave patients with lots of exposed flesh, with underwear or buttocks intermittently displayed and a feeling of extreme vulnerability, not to mention being cold if they have no other layers to wear,” he wrote.

“We should bear in mind that patients in hospital are often anxious and find themselves in an unfamiliar, depersonalising environment.”

The geriatrician suggested the garments – known as “dignity gowns” – were ludicrously named, when “such dignity as they afford is only in comparison to being stark naked”.

Writing in the BMJ, he said it was not right to expect patients to wear such garments, particularly in public areas,

with other patients and visitors of the opposite sex.

While there were some legitimate reasons to use the gowns for short periods, such as during particular types of surgery or imaging procedures, NHS hospitals often expected patients to wear them routinely, he said.

Patients, doctors and nurses responding to the #downwiththegown campaign backed the call for action.

One female patient said: “My breast cancer scanning appointments have involved putting a gown on and carrying my clothes around the waiting area in a supermarket shopping basket. It is so undignified, and unnecessary.”

A cardiac nurse said her own experiences as a patient had left her in tears.

“I was made to walk to surgery wearing a gown, paper pants and no bra. I’ve never felt so undignified and embarrassed. I was in my 20s, working at the hospital at the time and was recognised by staff and patients. I cried the entire way,” she said.

A decade ago, Ben de Lisi, a fashion designer, worked with the Design Council to develop a better design, which protected patients’ modesty, in a scheme commissioned by the Department of Health. But it was never introduced routinely across the NHS, although a handful of hospitals have introduced their own designs.

In November, a Lancet study found that seven in 10 hospital patients who had been asked to wear such gowns felt exposed. Almost six in 10 of the 900 respondents were unsure if there had been any medical reason for them to be dressed in such a way.

Dr Nicola Cogan, a researcher from the University of Strathclyde, said: “Our research clearly demonstrates that the hospital gown in its current design is not fit for purpose.”