Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what standardised (a) advice, (b) guidance and (c) support is made available to the family and friends of covid-19 inpatients.
The National Health Service takes all necessary precautions to protect patients and staff during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Current NHS guidance on ‘Visitor Guidance’ (within inpatient, diagnostic and outpatient areas) is that visiting is suspended with immediate effect and until further notice. NHS organisations will, however, consider visitors on compassionate grounds for seriously ill patients or those receiving end-of-life care only in agreement with each individual ward.
The visitor guidance can be found at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/publication/visitor-guidance/