NEW and more relaxed patient visiting guidelines will be put in place across the Alexandra, Kidderminster and Worcestershire Royal Hospitals from Monday, April 4, to enable patients and their loved ones to be reconnected in a safe way.
Patients will now be able to receive one visitor a day for a pre-booked 45 minute visit, with two separate visitors able to register to visit during the patient’s hospital stay. Separate measures will still be in place for patients identified as requiring compassionate visiting.
To ensure visits can be managed in a safe way, visitors will be asked to book their visit through a visiting app on the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust website (www.worcsacute.nhs.uk). Where patients do not have access to or cannot use the app, they will be asked to contact the ward via hospital switchboards to arrange their visit.
Chief nursing officer at the Trust Paula Gardner said: “I would firstly like to extend our thanks and gratitude to our patients, their families and loved ones for their understanding and adherence to the very strict hospital visiting rules that we have had to impose throughout this pandemic.
“We recognise the contribution that visiting makes to the wellbeing and person-centred care of our patients, and the support and love families and friends bring.
“Our new guidance will enable us to ease visiting restrictions and reconnect our patients and their loved ones in a safe and managed way.
“With Covid infections still commonplace in our local communities we need to ensure that we continue to exercise caution, and I want to stress that this is not a full return to normality.
“However, the measures we are putting in place are safe, proportionate and responsible and we look forward to gradually easing further restrictions as circumstances allow.”
The full guidance for patient visiting, as well as a link to the visiting app, can be found at: www.worcsacute.nhs.uk/visiting
The new guidance applies to inpatient ward areas. Visiting guidelines for maternity, neonatal and children’s wards remain unchanged and can be accessed via the Trust website. As before, we continue to welcome carers at our hospitals and do not consider carers to be visitors.
