What to expect when you come to our hospitals

Please be kind, we are here to help you

All forms of abuse, violence and discrimination against our staff will not be tolerated.

We can ask you to leave and refuse treatment.

Coming to an outpatient appointment

Patients attending our outpatients department can be accompanied by one adult if needed. Please be aware that the department has a maximum capacity for health and safety reasons – if this capacity is reached we may ask those accompany patients to wait outside of the department.

Please do not arrive earlier than 15 minutes before your appointment.

Please do not attend your appointment if you are symptomatic.

If you can, please do a Lateral Flow Test on the day of your Outpatient appointment, prior to attending it.

If the test is positive and your appointment is critical, please contact the clinic before attending so that necessary arrangements can be put in place.  If your appointment is not critical, please avoid attending by contacting the call centre on 01223 806000 and asking to have the appointment converted into a telephone or video appointment, or delayed until your Covid status is negative again.

If you do not have access to tests and do not exhibit symptoms of Covid-19 you may still attend. A test prior to your appointment is entirely voluntary though very helpful.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Read more about attending your outpatient appointment.

Regular hand washing

Please wash your hands on entering our hospitals, and when entering and leaving the clinical/ward areas. There are a number of hand washing stations across our hospitals.

Facemasks

Non-clinical and clinical areas are no longer required to wear surgical masks.

Some clinical areas within our hospitals will still require masks to be worn e.g. oncology

If you are unsure, please speak to a member of team responsible for your care.

Surgical masks will continue to be provided at entrances to clinical areas for visitors who wish to continue to use them.

We will continue to keep our Covid Secure guidance under regular review.

Testing

We test patients for Covid-19 who are being admitted to hospital and our staff are regularly tested, even if they have no symptoms, and self-isolate if necessary.
Some patients receiving planned care at our Trust will also be booked for a testing appointment prior to their procedure. These appointments are pre-booked and will be arranged by the clinical team caring for a patient.

We are not providing tests to members of the general public. Members of the public who have Covid-19 symptoms should visit the NHS coronavirus webpage (opens in a new tab). These tests are carried out at a range of testing centres across the region.