Due to the increasing pressures caused by coronavirus (COVID-19) and the need to ensure that the maximum possible inpatient and critical care capacity is available.
Sue Broster, deputy medical director
Link: https://youtu.be/zG_a6QCBv6A
All non-essential face-to-face outpatient appointments and planned procedures and operations will be postponed.
This is effective from this Friday, 20 March 2020, and will last for a period of at least three months.
We appreciate that this is unwelcome news. We would like to reassure you that you will remain in your current pathway for your appointment, and that you will not be asked to go back to your GP to get re-referred once normal service resumes.
We will update you when we can to let you know when your appointment can be rescheduled.
If you have not heard anything from the hospital regarding your appointment you should still come in.
Urgent and emergency cases and cancer treatments will be carrying on as normal.
A spokesperson for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group said: “As part of our preparations for an increase in coronavirus cases, we need to ensure that we have as many beds available as possible across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to care for patients with severe respiratory problems when the number of infections peaks."
Therefore, in line with well-established plans for situations like this, we are now suspending all non-urgent elective operations and outpatient treatment from 20 March for at least three months, with some other procedures likely to be rescheduled before then so we can train our staff and adapt certain areas.
Urgent and emergency cases and cancer treatments will be carrying on as normal, but we know many people waiting for treatment will be disappointed or worried, and we will be contacting everyone affected as soon as possible.