What to Send Someone in Hospital, and What Not To

Small, quiet, and not flowers. The space beside a hospital bed is about the size of a dinner plate, appetite is unpredictable, and many wards will not accept flowers at all. The gifts that work are the ones that fit on a bedside table and ask nothing of the person receiving them.

That is the short answer, and it is the opposite of what most people's instinct tells them, which is to send something big enough to show they care. In a ward, size is a problem rather than a message. Our hospital care packages are built small for exactly that reason.

What actually helps beside a hospital bed

The useful gifts are the dull ones, and they are dull for good reasons. Hospitals are dry, brightly lit, noisy at night and short on power points that are anywhere near the bed.

• Lip balm and hand cream. The air does the same thing to everyone.
• Good socks. Floors are cold and hospital socks are not.
• A phone charging cable that is far longer than seems necessary. The socket is never where the bed is.
• An eye mask and earplugs. Wards do not get dark and they do not get quiet.
• Something to read or do that survives being interrupted every twenty minutes. Puzzles, short pieces, anything that does not need a running start.
• Their own tea bags, if they are fussy about tea. Most people are.
• Hair ties, a comb, a toothbrush that is nicer than the one they were given.

None of it is a grand gesture, and that is the point. A gift that gets used every day of a stay does more than one that gets admired once and then has to be carried home in a plastic bag.

What wards commonly will not accept

Policies vary between hospitals and between wards inside the same hospital, so the only reliable rule is to check with the ward before you send anything unusual. That said, the same few things come up.

Flowers are the big one. Many wards restrict or refuse them, and intensive care and cancer wards very often do. There is also nowhere to put them, no vase, and nobody with a spare hand to find one. Latex balloons are frequently out because of allergy policies. Anything strongly scented is unkind in a shared room where somebody may be nauseated. And anything that needs a fridge will not get one.

If you are unsure and cannot ask, send to the home of whoever is visiting rather than to the ward. It arrives, it keeps, and it gets carried in.

It is also worth thinking about who has to carry everything home at the end. A stay ends with one person and however many bags they can manage, usually in a car park they have paid too much for. Anything bulky, breakable or awkward becomes their problem at the worst moment of the week, which is a good argument for the small useful thing over the impressive one.

What to do about food

Appetite in hospital is unpredictable, and what somebody can eat may change from day to day for reasons they may not want to explain. So send small, plain and sealed rather than rich, and never send anything that assumes they can eat it.

This is not a reason to skip food altogether. Individually wrapped things keep, they do not need a plate, and they can be shared with the visitors and the family, who have usually been living on the vending machine. A gift that feeds the people sitting beside the bed is not a failure of aim. If dietary needs are part of the picture, read the contents listed on each product page before you order and ask us if anything is unclear.

How to address it so it arrives

This is the part that goes wrong most often, and it is entirely fixable. Put the patient's full name, the ward and the room details in the delivery notes so staff can pass it on, and check the ward's own policy first, because some hospitals have their own rules about deliveries.

Two other things worth knowing. Patients get moved between wards, sometimes at short notice, so the shorter the expected stay, the better the case for sending to their home instead. And a gift addressed to a person who has already been discharged goes back the way it came, which helps nobody. If the stay is coming to an end, wait and send it to the house.

What to send once they are home

Recovery lasts much longer than the stay, and the second and third weeks are when everybody stops checking in. That is the better moment for the larger gift, and it is the one almost nobody sends.

At home there is a kitchen, a fridge and somewhere to put things, so the constraints all disappear. A self-care hamper, something from our wellness range, or one of the wider care packages all suit the stage where the person is bored, tired and no longer the centre of attention. If you want help with the note that goes with it, what to write in a get-well message is the companion to this piece.

The short version

1. Small enough for a bedside table, and not flowers.
2. Check the ward's policy before sending anything to the hospital itself.
3. Sealed, plain and individually wrapped beats rich and generous.
4. Full name, ward and room in the delivery notes.
5. If the stay is short or nearly over, send it to their home instead.
6. Send the bigger thing in week two, when everyone else has stopped.

Start with our hospital care packages, which are built to sit beside a bed rather than to fill a table. If the occasion is bigger than a get-well, choosing a gift for a moment that matters takes the wider view, and get-well hampers and gifts and how to help a friend who is unwell both cover the weeks after. Every order is hand-packed in Australia and sent Australia-wide with a free personalised gift card, so your message arrives before the gift is opened.