Louise Rogerson, Physiotherapist and CEO

Let’s get everyone lying comfortably!

We need to help people get the rest they need to get the best out of life. It started as a focus group of interested clinicians, patients and carers, sharing thoughts on challenges around sleep posture management within health and social care. It quickly became clear that the challenges are great – but our drive to fix them is greater. We have created a Manifesto to describe how we can make a real change for everyone. It’s your turn to get involved now.

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About

10 principles of sleep posture

Thank you is not big enough to express the gratitude to our focus group members, but it is all we have! They all gave their time and expertise freely. As a voluntary piece of work it was sporadic at times and their patience was endless.

Now, over to the fruit of our labour – our manifesto is a set of 10 principles, including 3 calls to action.

Our mission is to raise awareness around what we sleep on, how we move in bed, and how we get comfortable in bed – aka ‘Sleep Posture Management’. If we get this right, we believe that people will have less sleep disturbance and so optimise rest and recovery. These principles sit well alongside existing advice and services around sleep behaviours to improve sleep. This impacts all of us – we all have a role to play in achieving our best sleep and sharing that with others, for today and tomorrow.

1

Sleep is very important for everyone’s health. It helps us feel better and stay healthy. Everyone, including the people who take care of us, should have a good chance to get enough sleep.
2

Sleep is a good time to get into a good posture that we practice during the day
3

Looking after the position we sleep in should involve everyone in the team.
4

When we look at how people sleep, we need to use facts from studies to help us do it better. It’s important to keep checking and learning more about sleep positions. This way, we can understand what helps people sleep best.
5

When helping someone sleep better, we should focus on what the person needs, not just their health problem. It’s important for doctors and patients to talk and make choices together about the best way to treat sleep issues.
6

Learning about sleep and how to sleep well should be an important part of education for doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists. It helps them take better care of people’s overall health.
7

Everyone should be able to sleep in the best way possible and easily move in bed when they need to.
8

A bed needs to do three important things:

a) It must be soft enough to sink in but also strong enough to support you. (This is just for special foam beds—special air mattresses don’t need this.)

b) It should help the person move if they can do it by themselves.

c) It should be easy for the person to move around or for the caregivers to help them move.
9

People, families, and helpers should get helpful materials that teach them how to sleep well and move in bed. These materials should include information about beds, how to move safely, and tips for better sleep.
10

Helping people with positions to sleep in should be offered to all people when they are at hospital or at home and being looked after by a service from the NHS or Social Care.

Our 3 calls to action:

There must be a greater understanding about the impact of sleep posture and bed mobility on sleep quality, health outcomes, and carer demand

People who need help because of their health should be able to get advice and help for how they sleep as part of their regular care.

High quality support on sleep posture should be available to everyone with consistent easy to understand information underpinned by research, trusted opinion, and government policy  

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Our Promise

We will take these principles and calls to action to the world and work with partners to help take the theory into practice. We will seek out funding to support change programmes and evaluate impact where possible. We will recognise contribution from partners, while seeking to make insights and knowledge freely available to those who need it.

We want to engage with leaders and decision makers to integrate Sleep Posture Management into:

Health and Social Care pathways

Staff and volunteer wellbeing

Clinical Education Carer support

Sport and Physical Activity programmes

To do this, we need to gather support. Numbers matter! Pledging your support simply means you agree with our principles and the call to action. When we get opposite the people making change happen, we will be use the pledge numbers to back us up. That is all.

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