If you have ever spent any time in a hospital or visited someone who is in a health or care facility of any kind, you will have seen that much of the furniture there differs from that you would have at home, and as such, it has to be acquired from specialist commercial furniture manufacturers and suppliers.

As you would expect, the sorts of commercial furniture that will be bought for care facilities, whether they be for healthcare, mental health care, or for aged care, will be extremely diverse.

\It can range from something relatively simple like chairs for waiting rooms to specialist medical chairs such as therapeutic chairs for long-term residents.

As well as chairs, there will also be a variety of tables that are required, and one such table is called an overbed table.

As the name suggests this is a table that is used in health facilities and used for those who may be confined to bed due to their condition.

It has a support arm on one side but is open on the other side so that it can be manoeuvred into position above the bed, and for the use of the person in that bed.

Overbed tables are not something that you may have to purchase very often, and that means you may not be certain of what features to look for when buying one or more of them.

For that reason, we thought it would be helpful if we produced a short and simple guide to buying overbed tables for medical facilities.

What Is An Over Bed Table?

For anyone who is not 100% sure what an overbed table is, they are designed to be used with beds in medical and health scenarios.

Their design is such that if you were looking at them from the end of the bed they would appear to be in a ‘C’ shape.

This would be the tabletop being at the top, the main vertical support to the left, and then the base, which is usually on wheels, at the bottom of the support.

What Are Overbed Tables Used For?

The main use of overbed tables is to allow someone who is in a care bed to have a table to use for eating meals or for having items they are using closer to them, such as a TV remote, a book, or a laptop, for example.

The main places they will be found are hospitals, aged care facilities, and other health facilities that have patients or residents who have to remain in bed for most of the time.

Main Features Of An Overbed Table

Portability: Given that an overbed table might be used at different times by different individuals and that it will need to be moved so that a patient can be treated or can get out of bed, it must be portable.

This is achieved by it first being relatively lightweight compared to other table types, and usually being on wheels.

If not on wheels, the feet will have pads or glides to allow the overbed table to be moved with little effort across the floor.

Adjustability:  One benefit of an overbed table versus many traditional tables is that it is adjustable.

The main adjustment will be the height of the tabletop to make it easier for the person using it to reach anything that is on it.

Some may also have a horizontal adjustment to move the table further across the bed, and others have tilt adjustment which might be useful for reading a book, for example.

Durability: As with most commercial furniture that will be used in medical and care facilities, all parts of an overbed table must be robust to boost its durability.

This is for several reasons which include the table being bumped numerous times as it is moved, food and drink being spilt on it, and even the possibility of it being abused in some way by an angry or distressed patient.