Scarborough and Bridlington Hospitals have temporarily banned hospital visitors
The hospitals say they have taken the decision in light of new guidance to limit the spread of Covid-19, and to protect vulnerable patients and ensure staff safety.
They say they will seek to apply the visiting guidance compassionately and there will be some discretionary exceptions for paediatric and maternity services as well as for patients receiving end of life care.
The York NHS Teaching Hospital Trust says the suspension applies to all it's sites including Scarborough, Bridlington and York Hospitals. They say as soon as it possible to safely relax the visiting restrictions they will do so.
The hospitals are asking, family, friends and carers to stay in touch by using their virtual visiting service where patients are provided with an iPad for video calls.
On the trust website they explain the virtual visitor service...
"In the first instance, wherever possible, our preference is for family, friends and carers to stay in touch by using the telephone or social media, rather than face-to-face visiting. This helps reduce the number of people coming into our hospitals, which is safer for everyone.
We provide a 'Virtual Visiting' service, where patients who do not have a phone or tablet of their own can use a hospital iPad to video call the people who matter to them. If you would like to video call someone in hospital, provided this is the patients wish, and the patient does not have their own phone or tablet, please ring 01904 724229, email virtualvisiting@york.nhs.uk or speak to the ward directly, and we can arrange a video call for you."
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