Last week, we announced some new visiting restrictions for our adult inpatients, due to the prevalence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in our local communities.
With a high infection rate in the community, these measures have been introduced to help protect our staff and vulnerable patients, and to help us slow the spread of the virus amongst these groups.
Recently, we have faced significant challenges in terms of our workforce, with a high percentage of our staff being required to isolate. Whilst we are navigating these challenges together, we really appreciate your support out in the community in helping to stem the spread of Covid.
We ask that you adhere to our new visiting policies and refrain from gathering in our foyers and entrances to meet family members/friends. If you are congregating in these areas, you may be asked to leave by a member of staff.
At this time, we are keeping the footfall through our buildings to a minimum to help us work through the latest challenges presented by Covid. We understand that having a loved one in hospital during this time is difficult but we appreciate your compliance with these temporary visiting restrictions.
We also understand how important it is for the mental wellbeing of friends and family that they have access to regular updates about their relative so we are also exploring further options including a family liaison service which will help with communication between the ward and families/friends. A property drop-off service will also be arranged so that family members can get essential items to their loved ones in hospital.
If we all continue to follow the guidance and do the right thing, we hope that we can relax these restrictions in the near future. We will monitor the situation closely and reinstate visiting on our sites as soon as it is safe to do so.