Visiting and keeping in touch

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Visiting someone in hospital

Please read the information below regarding our visiting process.

To help keep our patients, visitors and staff safe, anyone feeling unwell should refrain from visiting, especially if you are experiencing or have recently experienced:

  • Symptoms of Flu, Norovirus or Covid-19, even if these symptoms are mild or intermittent, due to the risk they pose to others.

  • If you are experiencing symptoms of diarrhoea or vomiting, or have been in contact with anyone with these symptoms in the last 48 hours, please do not visit any of our hospital sites.

  • If you feel unwell in any way, even if these symptoms are mild or intermittent.

  • If you are showing symptoms of a respiratory infection. 

  • If you have rashes which may be infectious. 

Hand washing

You can help reduce the risk of infection by prioritising good hand hygiene, wash your hands regularly with soap and water. Visit on 'How to wash your hands' for more information. 

Face masks

Visitors and patients are welcome to wear facemasks during your visit to our hospitals. 

Visiting restrictions

Visiting will be suspended on wards, or in affected bays that have outbreaks of Norovirus and/or Covid-19. The person in charge of the ward will advise on when visiting can be reinstated. 

Visiting in exceptional circumstances 

Please remember that there are exceptions to these visiting restrictions, as visitors can visit their loved ones in affected areas at the discretion of the person in charge, where they are receiving end of life care, in other exceptional circumstances, or the person visiting is the patient’s carer.

Adult inpatient visiting

Our priority is to provide quality care for all our patients and we recognise the important role families and carers can play in helping to improve our patients’ wellbeing and experience whilst they are staying with us. 

For this reason, family and carers are welcome to visit patients on our wards where our patients are happy for them to do so. We recognise that some patients may not wish to receive visitors and we will support their wishes. 

All three of our hospitals welcome visitors between 11am and 8pm, but please be aware that there is different guidance if you wish to visit someone on our Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Maternity wards, Children’s inpatients wards or Regional Burns Unit. Please contact those areas directly for their specific visiting times.

To help maintain the smooth running of our wards we just ask that only two people visit each patient at any one time (this may be two adults or one adult and one child). 

There is no need to wear a facemask unless you are visiting a patient with a suspected or confirmed respiratory infection, but the staff on the ward will be able to let you know if this is the case. 

To keep everyone safe there will of course be visiting restrictions put in place on wards where we have patients with infections. The ward/department manager or nurse in charge will be able to advise you of this. In the event that it is necessary for us to suspend all inpatient visiting we will share information on our website, social media channels and in our hospitals. 

Visitors' charter

Please download a copy of our Visitors' Charter [pdf] 38KB. It sets out guidelines that both staff and visitors need to adhere to and explains what you can expect from us during your visit and what we would like from you in return.

Visitor boards

Each ward and department now has an ‘Information for visitors’ board designed to include useful information for visitors to our hospitals. The displays include details of the ward, information about the discharge process, information for carers and support for our patients. The same information can be found on various pages of this website. Alongside this information we also highlight some improvements the Trust has made and a monthly overview of the ward's performance in relation to quality and safety of care.