Ordering uniforms for a care home is nothing like ordering for a building site. Nobody needs a 200 joule toe cap or a cut resistance rating. What they need is clothing they can move in, get through a 12 hour shift in, and wash at a temperature that actually does the job.
We kit out care homes across Scotland, from single independent homes to groups running several sites. The questions are always similar. How many tunics per carer? Tunics or scrubs? What do we do about staff taking uniforms home? Here is what actually matters when you buy.
Start with what the uniform has to do
A care home uniform is doing three jobs at once. It has to be comfortable enough to deliver personal care in, safe to launder, and clear enough that a resident or a visiting relative can see who works there and what their role is.
Bare below the elbows
The first thing that trips buyers up is sleeve length. Scotland's National Infection Prevention and Control Manual (NIPCM) applies to care homes as well as hospitals, and it is built around hand hygiene that actually works. That means arms bare below the elbow. No long sleeves, no wrist watches, nothing that sits where you wash.
In practice, a care home tunic needs to be short sleeved. If you are shopping on price alone, watch out for long sleeved tunics that look smart on a product page but fail the moment someone asks why a carer's sleeves are down at a resident's bedside.
Tunics: what to look for
A good care tunic is short sleeved, has movement built in, and survives a hot wash. Look for back action pleats or a stretch fabric, because lifting and hoisting puts strain across the shoulders. Look for a concealed zip or press studs rather than loose buttons that snag on bed rails.
Pockets matter more than most buyers expect. A chest pen pocket plus two hip pockets lets staff carry a pen, a notepad and a small hand gel without their hands full.
Our tunic range runs from a plain women's or men's polycotton tunic at £15.00, through a stretch care home tunic at £22.50, up to the four way stretch Onna by Premier tunics at £21.90. A few styles, such as the CHLT1 Classic Tunic, carry an explicit infection control compliant claim on the label. That claim is not on every tunic we sell, so ask us which ones if it matters to your inspection.
Scrubs, and why they are not PPE
Scrub suits have grown popular in care homes because they are simple, cheap to replace and easy to wash. A scrub top and a pair of healthcare scrub trousers from our range works out at £25.76 for the set.
Two things worth being clear on. First, scrubs are workwear, not protective equipment. NHS England's uniforms and workwear guidance treats a uniform as separate from PPE, and lists disposable aprons and gloves as PPE that sits outside a uniform policy. Second, scrubs do not replace hand hygiene. A short sleeved scrub suit supports bare below the elbows, but on its own it protects nobody.
Aprons and gloves for personal care
Personal care means contact with body fluids, and that is where the actual protective kit comes in. Disposable aprons are the cheap workhorse. A hundred white aprons costs £4.35, a hundred blue ones £4.80.
Colour is usually about habit and colour coded areas rather than law, so use whatever supports your own policy.
For wet work, so bathing, showering and the laundry room, a reusable waterproof tunic apron at £10.33 wipes down and lasts, so you are not burning through disposables on jobs where a disposable only lasts a minute.
Gloves are nitrile for personal care, one pair per task, changed between residents, with hand hygiene before and after. If you want the detail on which disposable glove suits which job, we covered it in our nitrile vs latex vs vinyl gloves guide.
Footwear: the bit care homes under buy
Care staff do not need a safety toe cap, which is one of the few buying decisions you can make on comfort rather than a standard. Support, a grip sole and something easy to clean matter most, because a carer is on their feet for a whole shift and a wet floor is never far away.
For wet work and trips outside, an O4 occupational wellington at £14.50 does the job. O4 is the occupational footwear marking for an all rubber or all polymeric boot, the non safety toe cousin of a safety wellington, and the FO marking means it resists fuel oil as well as water. The Dunlop Pricemaster at £16.48 is the other staple we sell in that space.
For indoor wear, a comfort fit shoe built for long shifts, such as the DK96 at £44.34, is money well spent for staff who never sit down. Replace them when the sole goes smooth, not when they start to leak. A bald sole on a tiled corridor is a slip waiting to happen.
The laundry rule most uniforms fail
This is the one that catches care homes out. Infection prevention guidance for care settings is specific about uniforms. They should be washed separately from other laundry, on a hot cycle, ideally at 60°C or at the highest temperature the fabric will tolerate. Soiled or fouled items should be bagged and taken home in a plastic bag first, not dropped loose into a rucksack.
That turns the wash care label into a buying decision, not a small print detail. A cheaper tunic that tops out at 40°C is a false economy if your policy asks for 60. Check the label before you order two hundred of something.
Colours and branding
Colour coding by role is worth the small extra effort. Senior carers in one colour, carers in another, housekeeping in a third tells a resident's family who is who at a glance. We embroider logos and job titles onto tunics, scrub tops and fleeces, so the uniform carries your home's name, and we would order a few spare sizes for new starters and agency staff.
If you are kitting out a care home, we can put a colour coded uniform package together, embroider it with your logo, and hold it on a trade account so your reorders come back in the same sizes. You can see the range in our health, salon and beauty workwear section, browse tunics and footwear, or ring us on +44 (0)1236 755544 and we will work through it with you.
REF: CARE-HOME-UNIFORM
