Aug. 11, 2025
Sleep is critical in maintaining energy balance, cognitive function, and overall health. For those using a hospital bed at home due to illness, disability, or pain, finding the right bed is essential for achieving restorative sleep. This guide explores the key differences between hospital beds, offers honest customer feedback, answers frequently asked questions, and highlights important features to consider before purchasing.
EZONG supply professional and honest service.
Sleep is essential for your overall well-being, so your sleep space should be tailored to help you get the best rest possible! While you sleep, your brain recovers from the stresses of the day, and the quality and quantity of sleep directly impact your performance and decision-making. A good night's sleep leaves you feeling more alert, positive, and better equipped to ward off illness and tackle medical challenges. It also helps you get along with others and improves your overall physical and mental health.
If a person spends more than 15 hours daily in bed or requires long-term care, a full-electric home hospital bed offers the best comfort and durability while reducing physical strain on caregivers. However, these beds are also the most expensive. Manual and semi-electric beds are more affordable and may be suitable for short-term use, but they require more effort from caregivers and offer less independence for the patient.
Patient mobility plays a crucial role in selecting the right home hospital bed. A highly adjustable electric or semi-electric bed is ideal for those who are unsteady or at risk of falling. It’s also a great choice for individuals who cannot reposition themselves or safely get in and out of bed without height adjustments. However, if a patient can get in and out of bed independently and stand steadily a manually adjusted bed may be a more cost-effective option.
Caregiver needs should be considered to ensure the proper level of care can be provided. For a patient requiring many position changes, a manual bed wouldn’t be the best choice. An electric bed will take the most strain off a caregiver. A caregiver’s strength and stamina should be considered when deciding which home hospital bed is best.
A bariatric bed is wider than a standard bed, providing greater comfort for heavier users. Pediatric patients will be safer and more comfortable in a child-sized bed. Beds can also be customized for taller patients. No matter the size needed, the right bed can be found!
For patients who spend most of their time in bed, especially if mobility challenges prevent them from regularly self-repositioning, a hospital bed’s positioning features can significantly impact comfort and quality of sleep. The number of sections, position options, and height adjustability contribute to the user experience. Here are the most popular positioning options:
Optional assembly services simplify setting up a hospital bed at home, removing the guesswork and effort. During a stressful time, having professionals correctly assemble the bed can reduce anxiety and help create a calmer, more comfortable environment.
Rehabmart has a large selection of hospital beds and other products that offer assembly services.
A hospital bed at home can be a valuable tool for promoting rest and healing. Whether recovering from an injury, adjusting to mobility limitations, or transitioning from an in-patient stay, a home hospital bed can enhance health, independence, and overall quality of life.
The adjustable knee and head sections improve incontinence support, and easy sanitization helps maintain a healthy environment. Repositioning options reduce the risk of pressure ulcers and provide comfortable postural support. Safety features like side rails, bolstered mattresses, and height adjustability further minimize the risk of falling out of bed.
This answer is different for everyone, but there are options to fit any needs. Beds that have multiple positions to correctly and comfortably support the body, mattresses that range in firmness, and available therapeutic features all impact the user's comfort.
A full-electric hospital bed electrically adjusts the height, head, and foot positions with the press of a button. Benefits include fostering patient independence and safety features to ensure maximum user comfort and safety while minimizing the physical strain on a caregiver.
Yes, we have a wide selection of hospital and home care beds!
A semi-electric bed combines manual and electric adjustments. The head and foot sections are typically adjusted electrically, while a hand crank manually adjusts the bed’s height. This style is ideal for users who need to adjust the head and foot sections for comfort but don’t require frequent height adjustments when getting in and out of bed.
A bariatric hospital bed is designed to meet larger-framed users' size and support needs, handling more weight than standard hospital beds. Some models can support up to 1,000 pounds, while others are suited for patients weighing 350-450 pounds, filling the gap where standard beds fall short. With heavy-duty construction, these beds are durable and feature height adjustability, safety rails, and extra width to cater specifically to bariatric patients.
Medicare will cover home hospital beds if they are prescribed by a doctor as medically necessary durable medical equipment.
A fully electric home hospital bed can range from $500 to $, and the mattress isn’t always included, so consumers need to ensure they are also getting all the appropriate accessories when purchasing a bed.
The primary purpose of a hospital bed is to provide effective care and treatment while ensuring patient safety and comfort. Adjustable beds are designed with a focus on maximizing user comfort and support for activities like sleeping, reading, eating, watching TV, or relaxing. They resemble standard beds more closely, while home hospital beds are geared toward treatment and often have a more institutional design and feel
A hospital bed for home care has features that cater to the needs of people recovering from an injury or who have to spend a lot of time in bed. Their adjustability makes them more appropriate than a standard bed for providing comfortable support and enabling caregivers to deliver quality care.
There are three main types of hospital beds: manual, semi-electric, and full-electric. Below, we break down each bed and our top-recommended product.
Manual hospital beds are the least expensive models, with fewer features than semi-electric or full-electric options. A manual hospital bed requires a caregiver to make adjustments via a hand crank, making them most appropriate when frequent adjustments are unnecessary.
A semi-electric hospital bed is a good choice for someone who has good enough balance to not need to adjust the height of the bed to transfer on and off. This bed style uses electric and manual adjustments, with the head and foot sections usually adjusted electrically while the height is adjusted with a manual crank.
Best Semi-Electric Hospital Bed: Competitor II Semi-Electric Hospital Bed by Drive Medical
The height, head, and feet adjustments are made with the push of a button on a full-electric hospital bed. If a patient can control the bed positioning, it decreases reliance on caregiver assistance and increases independence and confidence. If a caregiver isn’t close by, most full-electric beds have a feature that locks the bed in position so a patient can’t accidentally move it into a position that could be dangerous.
Best Full Electric Hospital Bed: Lumina Medical Electric Hospital Bed with 5 Functions
Specialty hospital beds are specialized beds that are designed to meet very specific patient needs. Some specialty beds address fall risks, bariatric patient weight, and non-clinical designs.
Although not hospital beds, sleep-to-stand beds have some of the exact positioning options as hospital beds. Sometimes, they are referred to as sit-to-stand beds or adjustable beds. They provide comfortable support for many things a person would use a home hospital bed for, like sleeping, reading, watching TV, or relaxing. They look more like standard beds and can be ordered in larger sizes to accommodate two sleepers. The less-institutional feel is attractive to many users. There are a few basic models with manually adjustable frames, but they are not used in caregiving settings. By far, most adjustable beds are fully electric, and some can take users from lying down to standing up for easy transfers. They are a good choice for people who seek some of the features of a hospital bed but want a traditional bed's look, feel, and size options.
Best Sleep to Stand Bed: Envyy EZ Out Sleep to Stand Electric Lift Bed - Twin Sized - Fixed Height - by Platinum Health
Low beds are ideal for people with a higher risk of falling because they reduce the distance between the bed and the floor, decreasing the risk of injury from a fall. These beds make it easier for users to get in and out of bed, which helps minimize the strain on a caregiver during transfers. Usually, the height is adjusted electrically, and positioning adjustability includes elevating and reclining the head and feet sections and allowing for ergonomic lying down and sitting.
Best Low Bed: FloorBed by Accora, Floor Level Fall Prevention, Height-Adjustable, Ultra-Low Bed with Bariatric Option
Standard hospital beds have a weight capacity of 350 to 450 pounds. Bariatric hospital beds, also called heavy-duty beds, can accommodate users weighing up to 1,000 pounds. Along with heavy-duty construction and larger sizes, with widths as wide as 54 inches, bariatric hospital beds feature height adjustability and can be ordered with safety rails. A bariatric bed, especially for someone who can’t independently reposition in a smaller bed, will support a larger patient in comfort and dignity.
Best Bariatric Hospital Bed: Lincoln Expandable Five Function Bariatric Electric Bed with Trendelenburg
Deluxe hospital beds are built for long-term, heavy-duty use, meeting the needs of acute-care patients and caregivers. Side rails, mitigated entrapment risk, and exit alarms focus on patient safety. User-friendly controls include a nurse panel, and patients can adjust the bed position without assistance. Benefits of a deluxe bed include ease of treatment delivery provided by the maneuverability, electric height adjustability, and the list of accessories available with this type of bed.
Best Deluxe Hospital Bed: Span America Advantage Hospital Bed
Although not technically a hospital bed, residential design beds have hospital bed functionality in a bed you’d find at home. The ability to adjust this bed’s height and the option to install side rails make it easier for users to get out of bed than with a standard bed. The electric adjustability helps relieve pressure points and combat the development of bed sores, while the ergonomic positioning provides support and comfort. They can be ordered with waterproof mattress covers that contribute to a clinically sanitized environment at home.
Best Residential-Looking Hospital Bed: Adjustable Lift Bed with Sleep-to-Stand Feature - Envyy by Platinum Health
Although not hospital beds, safety beds offer features that address special needs and medical conditions and support sleep in a secure space. Enclosed by walls, fabric, or rails, in sizes appropriate for children and adults. Safety beds protect from falls, prevent unassisted exits, provide easy caregiver access, and protect from entrapment or entanglement. They have features like padding to protect users who have seizures, access ports for medical equipment, and support for those with sensory processing disorders who benefit from a completely enclosed space. They come in fixed heights or with manual or powered height adjustability, and mattresses range from air to gel to articulating. Some portable models are easy to take along while traveling.
When choosing a home hospital bed, select the options that best meet your needs for comfort and care to ensure the most restorative and healing sleep possible. We've reviewed the types of hospital beds available, and since not all beds come with dedicated mattresses, it's important to carefully consider your mattress needs as well.
This article will go over the options you have when looking to get a hospital bed at home. There are a range of reasons people may require a hospital style medical bed to provide care in their home including:
Contact us to discuss your requirements of hospital bed head panel. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
In of these situations, there are 2 main ways to go about getting a medical bed for your home.
Each of these options has positive and negative elements and below, we’ll go into what they are.
You can also get a free NHS hospital bed at home with the recommendation of a healthcare professional, we’ll go over how to do that here as well.
In the UK, 1 in 3 hospital beds are occupied by a patient who is medically fit to discharge.
These patients remain in hospital beds even if they don’t need to due to the ongoing the lack of appropriate care equipment when they are discharged to their home.
In any healthcare facility, it is important to ensure there is a good patient flow to ensure things run efficiently. This is especially the case in hospitals when patients are ‘fit to discharge’.
The slow discharge of medically fit patients also makes it difficult for inpatients to get into the hospital unable to transfer patients and get back on the road. This is what led to the long queues of ambulances outside UK hospitals seen in summer .
Lack of appropriate healthcare equipment in the community is one of the many reasons for the ongoing backlogs in NHS hospitals across the UK.
“The NHS has a shortage of hospital beds, with occupancy rates consistently exceeding safe levels.” – British Medical Association.
“We have older and disabled [people] with complex needs, yet social care capacity has reduced, and we have 50,000 fewer paid carers,” — Sarah McClinton, president of Association of Directors of Adult Social Services.
Hospital beds contain many features you wouldn’t usually expect to find on a bed in someone’s home.
Modern hospital beds are very adaptable to patient needs; designed for safety and to facilitate medical treatment by the NHS and healthcare professionals, they act as a comfortable flat, level surface when sleeping, and provide supportive head or foot elevation with their electric profiling base.
Electric, adjustable beds can have a range of features to benefit users:
The ability to rotate and turn into a chair bed to provide moving and handling assistance for elderly, disabled, bariatric or otherwise low mobility users
However, there are occasions where hospital-style beds are required for home use.
People with long-term health conditions, recently discharged hospital patients, palliative care patients at home rather than in a hospice and individuals with low mobility can all require assistive equipment that provides more support and functionality than a standard bed.
In the UK, anyone can buy a hospital-style bed to use at home. You don’t need a prescription or a recommendation from a doctor.
However, hospital beds come in all kinds of sizes, makes, and models. There’s no one set standard – different types of bed exist to suit different patient needs.
So, if you think you or a relative would benefit from having a hospital bed at home, we recommend speaking to a professional. They can make sure you get a bed that meets your care requirements.
There are two main ways to access professional advice on hospital beds for home:
In the UK, you can get a free hospital bed from the NHS, social services or your local council if you meet the criteria. Meeting this criteria requires an assessment or a decision from your GP and could take some time.
An assessment can be done by an occupational therapist in your home, or your GP can make a decision on medical grounds.
If you only need a hospital bed temporarily, a community nurse or other social healthcare professional can arrange for a one to be supplied from an NHS equipment loan store.
This method may be preferable for anyone recently discharged from hospital but would require a hospital style bed to aid their support continued care and rehabilitation at home.
A potential downside to this and any method that can get you a free hospital bed from the NHS is that you may have to wait a while to receive your profiling bed.
Going through the application processes can take a long time; you also won’t get much of an input on the bed’s appearance. Hospital beds supplied through social care services are often bulkier and more clinical looking than hospital beds you can buy for yourself.
This is why some people choose to buy a hospital style bed from a retailer like Vivid Care, you can make sure your new hospital bed is delivered to you quickly.
In the UK, there are no specific NHS criteria for getting a hospital bed at home. But if a carer needs to perform certain hygiene and care tasks, then a GP, or a social care worker can arrange for a hospital bed to be put in someone’s home.
These tasks need a profiling bed with more features & functions than normal beds. Ask a community nurse for advice on the best way of making you comfortable.
The table below outlines some of the NHS care & hygiene tasks that might require a using a hospital bed at home.
For many people, buying a hospital bed direct from a mobility equipment supplier is the best and fastest way to support at-home patient care.
By ordering a bed for yourself, you also have more control over the kind of bed that you get. You can opt for single divan style adjustable bed bed, or double profiling beds for couples.
We recommend going directly to a mobility equipment supplier if you:
It is possible that an external charity may offer financing help to buy a mobility bed, these situations are few and far but it is worth checking with local charities in your area.
There are also VAT relief options available for people with one or more ongoing disabilities, this UK government VAT relief page explains the criteria for zero VAT eligibility on products intended for the care or management of a person’s disability.
you buy a hospital bed from a mobility equipment supplier, you can also choose the type of profiling mattress that will come with your bed, for comfort a standard profiling bed mattress is the choice to make.
For people who expect to regularly spend a bit longer in bed, a foam pressure relief mattress is the recommended choice.
These types of profiling mattresses have pressure distributing materials inside them that reduce the chance of developing pressure sores/ulcers.
You CANNOT use a standard pocket sprung mattress on a profiling bed. They are just not flexible enough to support the profiling movement of the bed panels.
Non-innerspring mattresses (memory foam, latex and some hybrid mattresses) can imperfectly be used but it is best to buy a profiling mattress specifically made to go along with a profiling bed.
For more hospital room doorinformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.
Previous: What Are the Benefits of Cleanroom Hermetic Sliding Doors?
Next: Top 5 Benefits of Installing Bed Head Panels in Hospitals
If you are interested in sending in a Guest Blogger Submission,welcome to write for us!
All Comments ( 0 )