Severe restrictions put in place by the Government earlier this year to tackle the ongoing pandemic has significantly affected our hospital services.
Like other Trusts, at the start of lockdown we had to implement several changes at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals to help keep the public, members of staff safe and reduce the risk of transmission across our sites.
This meant restricting inpatient visitors across most of our services and reducing or suspending outpatient services so that we could reduce the number of visitors on-site at any time and lower the risk of transmission. The majority of outpatient appointments were no longer able to take place face to face, and instead were conducted over the phone or by video call.
Many of our services were moved to create dedi-cated “Covid-safe” areas for elective surgeries, and face to face outpatient services moved to the Ashford and Woking sites to allow St Peter’s to focus on Covid, emergency and urgent care.
Moving forward
Following the peak, we began to restore services in a safe and socially distanced manner. Good infection prevention and control practices, and the safety of patients, visitors and staff remains our absolute priority.
Since the beginning of August, we have been able to restart the remainder of our outpatient services, with at least 50% taking place virtually. Patients will be able to have a telephone or video call appointment using the platform ‘Attend Anywhere’, which will make it easier for many patients to attend appointments.
This will also help to minimise footfall across sites as we work towards increasing activity levels across all of the services to what they were pre-Covid.
Keeping you safe
We understand the concerns you may have about visiting our hospitals, but I want to take this oppor-tunity to reassure you that infection control and prevention remains a priority for us. Our sites continue to be thoroughly cleaned throughout the day and additional intensive cleaning is carried out regularly to reduce the risk of transmission.
Our staff undergo temperature checks when enter-ing the hospital sites and follow the same guidance for face masks – wearing surgical masks in non-clinical areas of the hospital and appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) in clinical areas.
Visiting our sites
When you next visit our hospitals you will notice that we have reduced the number of entrance/exit points and set up checkpoints, so that all visitors can have their temperature checked by a member of staff. At these points you will be asked to use the hand sanitisers available and wear a surgical mask in all areas of the hospital – unless you meet the exemption criteria or asked to remove it by a clinician.
Dedicated routes which are clearly signposted have also been introduced to help you get around the hospital and floor markers are being used to help with social distancing.
More information about the changes can be found in this short animation we have created: https://youtu.be/EajPb7j4Mjo
If you have experienced any of the following symptoms of Covid-19 within the last 14 days, please do not visit any of our hospital sites. This includes:
” A high temperature
” A new, continuous cough
” A loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
Please do not visit any of our sites if you or a member of your household has been isolating, or if you have been contacted by NHS Test and Trace after being in close contact with someone who has recently tested positive for Covid-19.
As the advice can drastically change from day to day, I’d recommend that visitors please check the current guidance on our website before visiting us at http://www.ashfordstpeters.nhs.uk