Visiting to return at New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton

Visitors are being allowed back to wards at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital from Wednesday after the lifting of certain Covid restrictions.

The trust running the site advised visiting would be arranged in a "controlled manner" due to positive patients remaining at the site.

Visitors will need to book a slot between 09:00 and 13:00, with just one visitor permitted per patient per day where possible.

Visits are set to last up to an hour.

Some areas of New Cross, including maternity and neonatal services, have their own process in place for visiting and people were advised to contact the wards directly for information.

Others areas are excluded from the relaxed arrangements, including the acute medical unit and clinical decisions unit.

Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust said visitors to its West Park Hospital and Cannock Chase Hospitals would need to contact wards there directly for guidance.

Those coming to New Cross, it added, were advised to take a lateral flow test before attending the site where, having sanitised their hands, they would be provided with a face mask before reporting to the Welcome Hub where they would be issued with a visiting pass and asked to show a negative test result.

Debra Hickman, director of nursing, said: "We have, where possible, supported visits on compassionate and certain other grounds throughout the pandemic and have worked hard to keep families connected with each other through video calls.

"Even with these arrangements in place we do understand that this has been an exceptionally difficult time for patients and their loved ones as we have all worked to keep everyone as safe as possible, including our own staff.

"We are now really pleased to be able to offer controlled visiting."

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