A new policy decision made by a Northern England hospital has struck a chord among a unique niche: florists. The 650-bed York Hospital announced it will ban flowers from all patient rooms beginning December 1 in an attempt to curb infections—and clutter.
"We've had a really significant focus on de-cluttering all our ward clinical areas over the past two or three months," says Libby McManus, chief nurse for York Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. "Quite often what happens is the room may be clean, but since it's untidy it gives the impression of not being clean."
Patient rooms at York Hospital can contain up to five beds, each with a chair and a locker, making space scarce. Nurses have been complaining about the nuisance of flowers for a long period of time, McManus says.
"In our high-risk areas we already have a ban on flowers and plants because patients are already at risk in those areas from the spores that flowers and plants carry," she says. "We decided to roll it out to the rest of the hospital because sometimes patients get numerous bouquets of flowers and because there's nowhere to put them and they get in the way."
Banning flowers in certain departments because of space restraints and germ concerns is common in many hospitals, but eliminating flowers entirely is rare, says Christine Nutty RN, MSN, CIC, president of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.
"The majority of the ICUs and cardiac care units ban flowers and part of that is for lack of space," she says. "They have so much equipment in the critical care unit they do restrict the flowers being brought in. It's for cleanliness as well as a space issue."
Before making the decision to ban flowers, York Hospital administrators surveyed patients for their opinions. They focused on maternity patients, who tended to receive the most flowers, and found that the majority wouldn't mind receiving their flowers at home rather than the hospital.
"Everyone wants to buy mum flowers, but mum doesn't stay in hospital that long anymore," McManus says. "Once she has a baby she's home within hours, so we decided it'd be a good idea for people to enjoy their flowers for longer at home."
Though this measure has been received well by patients in York, Nutty says similar policies are not likely to be implemented in the U.S. anytime soon.
"I think it's unlikely that they would ban them in all settings because it's such an uplifting thing for patients that come into the hospital," she says. "They go into such emotional stress when they're in the hospital and a lot of hospitals work very hard to make that person feel that they are at home. They want them to have an environment that is pleasing and pretty, so they allow the flowers."
Flowers and plants aren't completely absent from York Hospital, however; there is plenty of greenery in the chapel and outdoor courtyards.
"We want to make sure that patients have access to these kinds of things, but not right at their bedside," McManus says. "It's a local decision we've decided to make and we'll see how it goes."