Infection Prevention and Control guidance

General advice for visiting the hospice

Our priority is protecting the safety and wellbeing of our patients and their families, as well as our staff and volunteers. If you have a cough, cold, diarrhoea, vomiting or any other infectious condition, we ask that you please do not visit the hospice until you are feeling better.

Hand hygiene

We encourage you to wash your hands using soap and water or use the alcohol hand rubs located around the hospice. Do this when you enter or leave a patient’s room or other areas of the hospice.

If you’re concerned about the hand hygiene of doctors, nurses or anyone else you come into contact with at the hospice, you’re encouraged to ask them whether they have cleaned their hands.

Living with COVID-19

There is no longer a requirement to wear masks on the hospice premises for the prevention of the spread of COVID-19, by staff, patients, or visitors, except where this is part of an infection prevention control plan.

Our current arrangements are as follows:

• There are no limits on the number of visitors a patient can have while staying on the In-Patient Unit
• Masks will continue to be made available and people can wear them if they wish.

Masks will remain a part of universal precautions when we have an infectious patient, this could be any infection requiring a mask as part of PPE, not just COVID-19. If a patient has tested positive or is suspected of having COVID-19, then masks will be worn while carrying out that patient’s care.