Table 2 Comparison of nursing staff interviews between Stage 1 and Stage 2

Isolation from colleagues

The main thing should be about team work. One nurse should not be left to one room …. All the nurses should be working together. (Nurse Interview 10)

Not having a central tearoom in the wing I think impacts staff, it has had a negative effect. You have to walk to get there on your break, so for us the staff room is all the way down in F wing, … I think that has a negative effect from a morale point of view, they don’t get to sit in a tearoom, chat and debrief one another (Nurse Interview 6)

I think the camaraderie and the way we all worked together as a team has changed, the change is partly because of the environment that we’re working in. We don’t work as a team as well as we did in the old hospital. (Nurse Interview 2)

Patient safety including visibility, falls risk and infection control

The six-bed bay is really cluttered, so a lot of trip hazards. Just physically trying to find the space to get in the right position to help a patient up that can be a challenge. (Nurse Interview 6)

We have bays of four patients… you can see what’s going on. I think you provide a better service, because patients who are at high falls risk, you’re in there and you can see… and you can stop it before it happens. (Nurse Interview 11)

I think being all single rooms, there’s going to be a lot more falls, because we can’t see as many people at once. So I think there’s going to be a lot more one-to-one nurse specials if people are falling. (Nurse Interview 14)

The fact that each patient will have their own bathroom, so I think that will decrease our rate of infections. (Nurse Interview 5)

To see the patient is a bit difficult because of the layout… a lot of times patients will close their door, but for us closing doors, is not a good idea because we want to see them... (Nurse Interview 1)

When you’re with one patient and the call bell goes or something happened to another patient, because you’re in the room with one patient it’s hard to hear or know what’s going on with other patients (Nurse Interview 3)

Not every single room, even if it’s close to a desk, is high visibility because the doors are facing the wrong way so you can’t see into the room from the desk (Nurse Interview 11).

It is lovely that patients’ have their own toilet but … I find that patients can fall quite easily in a bathroom and you don’t even know they’re in there (Nurse Interview 2)

… I feel like overall in terms of infection control for the patient, it’s good (Nurse Interview 8)

Wasting nursing time

Finding equipment that works isn’t always easy sometimes. You can walk up and down the ward to find a blood pressure machine that’s actually been plugged in and is charged or a stethoscope or a manual blood pressure machine that the pump is working properly. (Nurse Interview 2)

… Sometimes you can come on and between the early and the late you could move six patients. We don’t move them for nothing. It is genuine reasons. Sometimes it’s reasons because of the layout. They need a side room. (Nurse Interview 8)

..the way it’s set out you can’t find staff, you don’t know where anyone is, you can tend to do a lot more walking, I can walk around and around and around in circles looking for staff …. (Nurse Interview 2)

Patient privacy and confidentiality

Yeah, they will be more comfortable in a single room with privacy, confidentiality, maybe more room and less noise. (Nurse Interview 10)

In a single room, handing over is going to be private because you’re not having people in a bay listening (Nurse Interview 16)

Somebody who’s got limited mobility its difficult they have a bit of a walk. Single rooms they will be closer to the toilet it will be better more private (Nurse Interview 9)

It’s easier to have a conversation in a single room, facilitating more family meetings within that patient’s room rather than previously when we’d have to find a room to have sensitive conversations… (Nurse Interview 11)

I think the good side is privacy. Sometimes when you’re having certain conversations with patients, discussing living situations to discharge them to or even doing some clinical procedures a curtain would not quite suffice (Nurse Interview 3)