Staying safe during your visit

It’s important to us to prevent the spread of infection in our hospitals and community sites, and keep you safe. To maintain strict standards of hygiene, we:

• follow national guidance for infection prevention
• train our staff and volunteers in how to limit the spread of infection
• keep our theatres, equipment and wards clean
• have extra measures in place to protect vulnerable patients

When you visit or stay in our hospitals, please follow this guidance to help keep everyone safe.

Do

• follow our hand hygiene guidance
• tell the ward or department if you think you have an infectious condition before you visit
• tell a member of staff if you notice that a ward area, toilet or bathroom is dirty, so they can arrange cleaning

Don’t

• ask or allow friends and relatives to visit you if they are unwell
• visit or accompany a patient if you have symptoms such as coughing, sneezing or a sore throat
• visit or accompany a patient at our hospitals if you have had any symptoms of diarrhoea or vomiting in the last 48 hours

Healthcare professionals may wear personal protective equipment like masks, gloves and aprons when caring for patients in line with our infection prevention and control precautions. We might ask patients to wear masks in certain clinical areas.

One of the best ways to prevent bacteria and viruses (germs) from passing from one person to another, is by washing our hands.

This video shows the best technique for washing your hands:

There are hand gel dispensers at the entrance to every ward and we ask that anyone entering the department uses it.

To use, place a squirt of the gel onto the palm of one hand then rub your hands vigorously together, covering all areas of your hands and fingers. Keep rubbing your hands together until the gel evaporates. This takes 20-30 seconds.

Always wash your hands with soap and water:

• after using the toilet, changing a nappy or handling a potty
• after sneezing, coughing or blowing your nose
• after contact with blood or body fluid
• before and after handling raw food like meat and vegetables
• before and after eating or handling food
• before and after treating a cut or wound

Outbreaks of diarrhoea and vomiting can circulate in the winter months.

These bugs can be very dangerous to vulnerable patients, so it is important that visitors do not enter the hospital if you have had any symptoms of vomiting or diarrhoea in the last 48 hours.

Flu is a serious illness that can be especially harmful to vulnerable patients in our hospitals.

In the winter months: catch it, kill it, bin it.

Use a tissue and dispose of it safely in a bin, washing your hands regularly.

If you have had flu, you are still infectious for up to a week from the day you started to feel unwell. To reduce the risk of spreading the virus in hospital wards, please do not visit until this time has passed.

If you are offered a flu vaccination on the NHS, please take up this offer. Along with good hand hygiene, the annual vaccine remains one of the best ways to protect you and your loved ones.

• don’t sit on the beds – use the benches/chairs provided instead. This is because some bacteria survive in skin cells that we shed, and beds are the place we are most likely to shed them. These bacteria can be picked up by your skin or clothing and passed on to you.
• remember to wash your hands and use hand gel when entering and leaving the ward
• do not use patients’ toilet facilities – there are separate toilets for visitors
• help us keep our hospitals clean and tidy: dispose of waste (used tissues or food wrappers) in the bins provided
• do not bring food in from home: we cannot reheat any food that hasn’t been prepared in the hospital, or share it with other patients

• remember to use the hand wipes provided before eating meals
• don’t sit on other patients’ beds, use the chairs/benches provided
• do not share toiletries with other patients
• try not to touch any wound dressings, stitches, drips, or catheters unnecessarily
• try to avoid bringing lots of personal belongings to hospital – we have limited storage
• help us keep our hospitals clean and tidy by disposing of rubbish (e.g. used tissues or sweet wrappers) in the bins provided

Sometimes we need to take extra precautions to care for those with infections, to protect them and others:

• patients may be moved to a room of their own
• staff may need to wear aprons and gloves when they are caring for the patient
• visitors may need to take extra precautions – this should be checked with a staff member

If you have any questions about your care, please speak to staff on the ward.

We screen for MRSA in line with Department of Health guidelines.

This is to ensure that patients being admitted from home or other care settings can be identified and treated quickly to prevent themselves from developing an infection (for example, in a surgical wound or catheter).

If you fall into one of the identified groups, a swab will be taken from your nose, armpit and groin, as well as any wounds you may already have. These are the common places on the skin where MRSA is found. You will have these swabs taken by the nursing staff when you are admitted.

Patients are screened if they are undergoing a procedure where it is important that an MRSA infection does not occur.

If you attend the pre-operative admission clinic on Appleby Suite, swabs will be taken for you, as above.

If you are admitted straight to the ward, or are already in hospital, the nursing staff on the ward will take the swabs for you.

The swabs do not hurt and are important to protect you and other patients from acquiring an infection with MRSA.

If you would like to know if you will be screened for MRSA when you come into the hospital, please ask a member of staff on the ward or in the department.

Our Infection Prevention (IP) Team has close links with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which helps to monitor levels of infectious conditions and share information.

We treat all incidents and outbreaks seriously. An outbreak in hospital may need only two patients to be identified with some conditions.

Outbreaks and incidents are reported within the hospital, and there are systems in place to help us to learn from these – to improve and plan for their future management.

Outbreaks occur in both hospital and community settings, most commonly viral gastroenteritis and flu type illnesses, and the spread of these is difficult to prevent.

To limit spread within the hospital, it is sometimes necessary to close wards to new admissions and delay discharges. This helps to prevent further spread of the infection into care settings within the community.

If you are a patient or a visitor, and are in an area affected by an outbreak, you will be informed by staff, or you may see signs informing you about extra precautions you need to take.

Please do not visit patients if you have:

• diarrhoea or vomiting
• a cold or flu
• chickenpox or any undiagnosed rashes

We take the prevention and control of healthcare associated infections very seriously, and we are committed to sharing good infection prevention practices. Please speak to the nurse or midwife in charge of your ward or department if you have any concerns.

You can read about our infection prevention compliance in our annual Quality Accounts.