NHS chief orders hospitals to allow visitors on wards

NO PATIENT should have to be alone in hospital, the head of the NHS has said, as she ordered trusts to ditch any remaining visiting restrictions.

Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, wrote to trusts yesterday on the next steps in the health service’s Covid-19 recovery plan.

National guidelines on hospital visiting set in March, which allowed visits of at least one hour per day, should be the “absolute minimum standard”, she said.

“However, in practice, all healthcare settings should now begin transitioning back towards their own pre-pandemic (or better) policies on inpatient visiting,” Ms Pritchard wrote.

She added that the “default position” should be “no patient having to be alone unless through their choice”.

She made the comments after The Daily Telegraph raised concerns that families were being restricted from visiting patients in hospitals, despite the Government’s “living with Covid” plan.

Analysis by this newspaper previously revealed around a quarter of trusts were restricting visits in February. By April, around one in eight were still preventing visits from loved ones.

During an NHS England board meeting yesterday, Ms Pritchard stressed allowing visitors and letting loved ones accompany patients, “is really important to patient experience, mental health and recovery”.

“Not to mention the benefit that clinicians can get from having the input and insight into their patient from those who know them best,” she added.

Ms Pritchard agreed there was a need to “balance risk” as Covid-19 is still circulating, but added: “Our starting point has to be: what do patients want and need, and the vast majority of inpatients

‘Our starting point has to be: what do patients want, and the vast majority will want and will need to see visitors’

will want and will need to see visitors.”

Earlier this month, Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, told hospital chiefs to drop all remaining restrictions as they are limiting operational capacity.

Infection control procedures were eased as Covid cases fell to free up more capacity to tackle record waiting lists, which have now reached 6.4 million.

Writing to trusts, Ms Pritchard said the guidelines should be accepted “in full… given the significant benefits this can bring to increasing capacity and reducing waiting times”.