How to Make Nursing Beds

Two key areas of any nursing curriculum are bed-making and infection control. Given that beds are the places where patients spend most of their time, their link to infection control in a hospital is obvious. The unoccupied hospital bed made up using a "closed" technique seeks to keep it free of airborne bacteria. If it is in use, it is made so that the patient can get back into it easily. Sheets are changed daily, if necessary, or else every second day, in order to keep bacteria levels as low as possible.

Things You'll Need

• Laundry trolley
• Clean sheets
• Clean pillow cases
• Clean blankets
• Laundry skip

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Instructions

• 1

  Pull out the laundry platform that can be found at the end of the hospital bed. Strip the bed and put the soiled laundry into the laundry skip, separating sheets and blankets. Place any highly infectious linen into dissolvable laundry bags, and put them into the skip that is specifically for biohazard (infectious) linen.

• 2

  Select clean sheets, a blanket and a counterpane (a hospital bedspread) from the laundry trolley. Place these items on the laundry platform at the end of the bed. Pull the first sheet onto the bed and cover the mattress with it, securing it at each corner.

• 3

  Put clean pillowcases on the pillows. Place the pillows at the head of the bed.

• 4

  Cover the bed with the upper sheet and secure it at the corners at the end of the bed. Pull the upper edge over the top of the pillows. Repeat this step with the blanket and the counterpane.

• 5

  Turn down the top edge of the sheet, blanket and counterpane, so that the bed is ready for the patient to get into (if you are making a bed for a patient). If you are making a "closed" bed, fold down the top edge of the sheet and blanket to just below the pillows, then pull the counterpane up and over the top of the pillows so that the bed is "closed" and kept free of airborne bacteria. If you are making a post-surgical bed, do not tuck the sheet, blanket or counterpane in at the end of the bed; this makes it easier to transfer a patient who is returning from surgery.